


ask, receive

by friday



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2093856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friday/pseuds/friday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim Kibum wins a date with pop idol Kim Jonghyun. This is not a rom-com. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ask, receive

“Kibum?” The tone of Nicole’s voice over the phone is so chipper the reception crackles in the middle of his name, and Kibum winces. That tone never bodes well—it is the same tone he has come to recognize as the one she uses when she needs to soften particularly unfortunate news.

The first time, he was an eighteen-year-old college freshman (in Kibum’s version, he is young and fresh-faced; in Nicole’s version, he is young and just slightly less grumpy) and Nicole was the bubbly girl in his chemistry class who came by during lunchtime to tell him she’d lost the extravagantly expensive chemistry textbook she had borrowed two nights before, just in time for finals. She bought him coffee, tricked the TA for the other class into giving her an outline of the test, and helped him eke out a B- in Chemistry I, the hardest class he has ever taken, and they have been best friends ever since.

The last time was just three weeks ago, and she’d called to tell him she’d somehow crashed and then lost his bike on the route from her apartment to his.

“What is it now,” Kibum says, already resigned to his fate.

“What’s with the tone, Kibum?” Nicole sounds offended, as she does every time, as if she doesn’t know. “This is why you can’t get a date, you’re so distrusting.” She pauses significantly, as if to let that sink in, mostly because Nicole had a flair for the dramatic and was terribly transparent. “And speaking of dates, do you remember that contest I entered to win a date with Kim Jonghyun?”

“Yes,” Kibum responds slowly. “That’s all you’ve talked about for the past month. Don’t tell me you won?”

“Well, actually,” Nicole continues, voice so gratingly cheerful Kibum actually holds the phone a little further away from his ear. “I entered your name, and you won!”

Kibum has never known what it means to be shocked speechless until this moment. After fifteen seconds without a reaction, including regular breathing, Nicole asks with some concern, “Kibum, are you still there?” at the same time Kibum finally snaps out of his reverie and half-shouts, “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“You know,” Nicole says reprovingly ( _reprovingly_ , Kibum thinks—as if _he’s_ the one being rude here), “there’s really no need to shout. Also, could you buzz me in? I’m outside! It’s kind of windy.”

Kibum hangs up, and sits down on the arm of his sofa, putting his head in his hands. Thirty seconds of wallowing later, there is a terrifying crack on the other side of his front door, as if someone with steel-capped boots just kicked it. It is followed by the rhythmic banging of someone’s fist on his door and Nicole’s voice. “ _Kibum, I know you’re in there, I can see the light! Let me in, or else I’m going to tell Taemin who really showed those photos of him in drag to the intern!_ ”

Kibum jumps, and hurries to open the door lest his neighbors can complain again, catching Nicole’s fist in his hand on the downswing. “You already did that,” he reminds her wearily. “Last month, when I wouldn’t buy you drinks. Remember? He gave me the silent treatment for two days during summer internship application season and then we were behind on work for weeks.”

Nicole, the jerk, looks wholly unconcerned. “Oh, did I?” she says breezily, shrugging off her coat and handing it to him. Mechanically, he takes it and hangs it up on the coat rack next to his door before realizing what he’s inviting into his home.

“You did!” he says hotly. He resists the urge to stamp his foot a little, as Nicole settles onto his couch and takes a sip from a beer she’d just taken from his refrigerator. “Also, what are you doing in my house? Why are you drinking my beer? Traitors who sell me out to win dates with useless pretty boys with no talent aren’t allowed to drink my beer!”

Nicole looks up at him from her comfortable position on his couch, afghan pulled up to her chin. “I didn’t sell you out! And you’re going on the date, not me! Frankly, you should be thanking me—according to a poll Gallup conducted at the end of last year, Kim Jonghyun won with 56% of the 15-to-25 female vote in the ‘male singer you’d most like to date’ category. I’ve just made you the envy of thousands of fans everywhere!” She pauses, and adds, “And he’s very talented. I know you think so! You have his entire discography on your iPod.”

Kibum _knows_ his mouth is hanging open, he can feel it, and yet he is literally incapable of _not_ gaping at Nicole. “But I don’t _want_ to be the envy of thousands of fans,” he finally moans. “And why do you know what I have on my iPod?”

Nicole looks shifty, then guilty. “Er, I borrowed it? For the gym?”

Kibum looks at her incredulously. “Nicole, I’ve been looking for my iPod for weeks.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Nicole says loudly, though she can’t hide the blush flooding her cheeks, “your date is in two weeks, on February 22nd. That’s a Friday. He’s paying!”

Kibum finally sits down—though it’s more like he collapses—on the couch, and puts his head in his hands again. Nicole helpfully scoots over to avoid having her feet crushed. “How did this happen to me?” he wonders. “What did I do wrong in a past life to deserve this?”

Nicole nudges at his arm until he relents, allowing her to set her head on his shoulder. “Shh,” she says soothingly, rubbing circles on his stomach. “It’ll be great! Don’t even worry about it! You’re going on a date with Kim Jonghyun to eat awesome food! He’ll be paying for all of it! You know how much you love that.”

This last remark is followed with a gentle jab at his ribs, and Kibum smiles a little at that, but he’s not letting Nicole off so easy. “What if I don’t want to go? Why has no one asked me if I want to go?” he asks, still grumpy but a little less annoyed. “And how did this happen, anyway?”

“Well,” Nicole says brightly, as if it’s a wonderful story she’s been waiting to tell for a long time. “I put your name and address in to, you know, maximize my chances. I thought, on the off chance you did win, you could just send me in your place or something. Except the application asked all these questions about occupation and interests, and I guess male directors of fundraising aren’t quite what comes to mind when one thinks of Kim Jonghyun’s fanbase. I think his PR team thinks it’s a good publicity stunt so they picked you. Oh, Kibum, please go! It’ll be so much fun!”

Kibum thinks to the crowd of screaming teenage girls he saw in the one episode of Jonghyun’s backstage documentary Nicole had forced him to watch and decides, no, he is most decidedly not a typical Kim Jonghyun fan. Still, this is not the direction he envisioned his life heading in when he sat down with a cold beer on a Thursday night after a long day of work.

“I am glad my complete and total humiliation will make a good publicity stunt, at least,” he says, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Please tell my mother that I tried, but I was forced to change my name and go into hiding in Brazil to avoid being trampled to death by a pop singer’s preteen fans. And also to save my professional reputation. Also, Nicole, even though I hate you for leading me to my ruin, you can have whatever you want from my belongings. Except my iPod—I’ll need that for when I’m basking in the sun on a Brazilian beach, surrounded by half-naked and beautiful beach babes.”

“You’re exotifying, Kibum,” Nicole says reproachfully. “And don’t be dramatic. It’s just a date with an attractive man, who also happens to one of South Korea’s most popular singers. I fail to see the downside to all this.” And then, because Nicole is an immoral, insensitive, and hedonistic creature—“Just don’t forget to slip Jonghyun my number at the end.”

Kibum doesn’t even need to look at her to envision the grossly inappropriate wink. “You are _happily engaged_ ,” he reminds her, exhausted. Jinwoon had finally popped the question two weeks ago after three years of dating, and they were set to be married the March of next year.

Nicole beams down at the ring on her finger. “I am, aren’t I?” she says, looking so happy that Kibum knows it’ll be impossible for him to stay mad at her long. Then she winds an arm around Kibum’s middle, snuggling in. “By the way,” she says, voice muffled somewhere in the vicinity of his armpit, “you have an interview tomorrow at six for his website.”

At that, Kibum unceremoniously dumps Nicole off his couch, ignoring her cry of surprise. He walks to his coat rack, pulls her coat off, and throws it at her. “Get out of my apartment,” he says flatly.

Nicole is downright cackling when she pulls out his iPod from her coat, throwing it at him—he misses, wincing when it hits the floor, because she is an awful person as well as an awful friend and threw it when he wasn’t looking—and then blows him a kiss. “Night, Kibum,” she singsongs. “I’ll come over after work tomorrow to help you prepare!”

 

\--

 

The next day, Kibum slinks into work fifteen minutes late, hoping no one in his office has checked any popular gossip sites in the past twelve hours, which is exactly what Kibum stayed up until four in the morning doing, watching with horror as fans across the world not only tear apart his moral integrity but also, somehow, dig up a truly embarrassing dance team photo of him from college in the comments section of the at least twelve articles that have popped up about him since the news broke. His dreams of a day at work under the radar are quickly dashed when Taemin, their charming and all-talented Operations Director, undisputed prince of the office, and—in Kibum’s own humble opinion—a soulless robot with no allegiances, corners him in the kitchen as he is making coffee, unholy glee making his eyes gleam.

“ _So_ ,” Taemin says, and Kibum clutches his warm cup of coffee to his chest, contemplating throwing it in Taemin’s face and making a run for it. He supposes the ire and dismay he would face from Taemin’s various fans in the office, including the secretary, Kibum’s own assistant director, that traitor, and, hilariously, the intern Jongin, wouldn’t quite be worth the escape. “My sister sent me an interesting article last night.”

Kibum, to his credit, responds blandly. “Was it the one about the American CIA officer, because, you know what, I saw that too, and I thought it was pretty thought-provoking—”

“You never told me you were a fan of Kim Jonghyun,” Taemin interrupts, rather rudely, in Kibum’s opinion, “and that you wanted to go on a, oh, what was it, ‘ _romantic spring awakening love date_ ’ with him.”

Kibum winces. That was another one of the parts he’d been trying to forget. “Taeminnie,” he says pathetically, looking at Taemin with his best kicked-puppy look. “Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough humiliation?”

“No,” is the automatic answer—Kibum is actually insulted by how quickly it comes. “And never call me that again, it’s unprofessional. Who should I call to thank for this early birthday present?”

Kibum sighs, and sucks woefully at his rapidly cooling coffee through his stirring straw. “Nicole,” he finally grumbles. “Who else?”

“ _Nicole_ ,” Taemin says, almost reverently, because he is an awful human being and Kibum should really see about having him fired, if only it weren’t for the fact that Kibum himself had recommended Taemin for the position. “What a beautiful goddess of a woman. Jinwoon is a lucky man.” He turns on his heel, asking over his shoulder, “Is her card still in the directory? I’ll have Jongin send her flowers.”

Kibum very seriously considers drowning himself in their coffeemaker for a second. “You were so sweet in college,” he says despairingly to Taemin’s back. “What happened?”

Taemin shoots him an amused look that makes Kibum feel as if the tables have somehow been very unfairly turned when he wasn’t looking. “You did,” he responds cheerfully which, Kibum supposes, is fair. Taemin had _actually_ been fresh-faced and innocent when he was in college, until he joined the dance team and Kibum discovered that underneath the wide-eyed, apple-cheeked exterior was a soul even darker than his. It had provided him endless enjoyment then, but now he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end, and it was an unhappy, soul-crushing feeling. “By the way, I was the one who posted that dance team picture.” With this final parting shot, Taemin actually has the gall to _wink_ at Kibum, and Kibum reconsiders his previously magnanimous decision to preserve his face.

He settles instead for throwing his stirring straw at Taemin’s back. It hits his shoulder just as Jongin walks by, who looks distressed that the Development Director is beating up on his supervisor, which quickly transforms into confusion when Taemin places a hand on his shoulder and asks, all charm and underlying manic, “Jongin, what do you know about flowers and women?”

Jongin looks back at Kibum, slightly panicked look in his eyes. Kibum is sure he would be mouthing _help me_ , if only Jongin weren’t so serious and so determined to be such a good intern. It was funny to watch—Jongin was only a few months younger than Taemin, and they had even been in the same department at school, though Taemin had graduated two years earlier than Jongin, thanks to the grade he’d skipped in elementary school. A year out of college at 22, Jongin was more than capable, but Kibum had the sneaking suspicion that Taemin, who was the same age but still looked much like he had his first year of college, took immense pleasure out of lording it over someone for once. Jongin, to his credit, was immune to most of Taemin’s usual charms, though was often flustered around Taemin mostly because he was handling the transition from being Taemin’s classmate and dance team dongsaeng to being his intern poorly, and was often dismayed by Taemin’s casual teasing, a fact which seemed to delight Taemin to no end. Still, Kibum knew for a fact that Taemin had an offer letter he was sitting on just so he could make Jongin get him coffee twice a day and, apparently, buy Kibum’s traitorous best friend flowers, and still call it part of his job.

“Good luck,” Kibum says grimly to Jongin as he sidles by them on his way to his office. At least two heads swivel to watch him pass, and he resists the urge to throw his coat up over his head. He can hear their rapid clicking abruptly stop, and the profoundly guilty silence that follows, but thankfully he completes the journey from the break room to his office without any further humiliation.

It is not until he checks his email to see the sudden influx of messages notifying him of donations and emails of support that had come in overnight that Kibum starts to realize the potential in the situation. Out of curiosity, he checks their website’s statistics and page views and actually gasps a little out loud at the increase in website hits, which has almost tripled from last week’s statistics. For some reason, an image of Nicole comes to mind, winking and flashing a victory sign, and Kibum is suddenly overcome with an overwhelming urge to kiss her. _Sorry, Jinwoon_ , he relays telepathically. Jumping up from his desk, he almost breaks his little toe in his hurry to Jongin’s cubicle. This time, more than just two heads swivel in his direction as he almost slips rounding a corner.

“Jongin,” he says, catching himself on the corner of Jongin’s cubicle and trying to pretend he’s not out of breath. “Jongin, are you still sending out those flowers?”

Jongin looks up, and the perpetual expression of mild alarm on his face inches towards guilt. “Taemin-hyung told me not to listen to you if you tried to stop me. I’m not—”

“Jongin,” Kibum interrupts, and hands over his credit card. “Buy Nicole a dozen roses, and charge it to this card.”

“Oh,” Jongin says, looking slightly stunned. “Yes, of course, I can do that.”

 

\--

 

Kibum had graduated with honors with degrees in marketing and international relations four years ago with absolutely no clue of what he wanted to do. He relocated to the American branch of an oil company after graduation, too eager to get out and away, and worked a year in communications before the loneliness of living abroad and his increasing skepticism of the morality of his career led him to quit and move back to Seoul, where the familiarity was suddenly comforting instead of stifling. He worked mostly freelance for a few months, and started volunteering on the side through Nicole’s church. One of those volunteer gigs, and his favorite, was for The SHINE Project, an organization aimed at helping refugees in South Korea, with an unspoken but understood emphasis on providing legal services to those who faced further persecution based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identification.

When their Operations Director quit suddenly, Kibum applied for the job at Nicole’s urging without thinking too much of it, figuring he would quit in a year or so when he would finally figure out what it was he wanted to do. Somehow, a year or so turned into two years when he recommended Taemin for the position and he switched into Accounting, which turned into currently three years and counting, when he was promoted to Development Director just a few months prior.

Working full-time for a medium-sized nonprofit organization at twenty-five was not quite in line with anything Kibum had ever envisioned for himself but he figured that if the quiet feeling of pride and accomplishment made even making spreadsheets tolerable—and Kibum had to make a _lot_ of spreadsheets—it was probably worth sticking out for.

Kibum was quite adept at his job, despite the frustrations that came with the territory—helping to keep a nonprofit financially solvent was difficult to begin with, and combined with the rather controversial nature of their work, Kibum often ran into issues whose solutions more or less depended on their ability to fundraise and solicit sponsorship. They generally did alright for themselves in this area, though the period after the start of the new year was typically their least profitable.

But not, apparently, when one of your employees suddenly and rather inexplicably wins a date with one of Korea’s most popular solo singers. Kim Jonghyun, if Kibum remembered correctly, had once upon a time been in a boyband of middling popularity until the company representing them went under, but it wasn’t until he’d come back from his stint in the army and had a solo comeback two years ago that he’d shot to stardom. Now his—okay, admittedly attractive—face was everywhere, and he, Kim Kibum, was going on a date with a man worth at least two million in album sales and an international fanbase boasting of a few hundred thousand members. He kind of wanted to cry a little bit.

“Kibum,” Nicole says, and touches his arm. “You’re getting that look on your face again.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Kibum informs her cheerfully. They are en route to Kim Jonghyun’s company offices for the interview, for which Kibum had a newfound enthusiasm that seemed to both amuse and worry Nicole. “By the way, have I told you lately that you are my best friend and that I really quite adore you?”

“Not enough to wear a dress at my wedding though,” Nicole points out, “so, frankly, your affection is useless to me. Now, please try to be excited when you’re doing this interview—you won this date because you wanted to, and because Jonghyun is the one source of excitement and joy in your otherwise boring office man life. When did he debut?” She had actually come over to the office after work to thank Taemin for the flowers, and then whipped out a cheat sheet of basic facts about Kim Jonghyun she told Kibum he had to memorize. Taemin had gone very quiet at the sight of Nicole berating Kibum into reciting Kim Jonghyun’s measurements back to her, and when Kibum had looked over again, he was turned away, shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

“Yes, right, of course,” Kibum says absentmindedly. “He debuted on May 5, 2005 with his group and his solo comeback was October 17, 2010. My favorite song was his first single though, of course, I like all of them. His official color is green, and he’s 1.73 meters tall, which is on the short side, but that’s fine because I think it’s cute.”

Nicole looks vaguely impressed, and when the taxi pulls up to the front of the office building, she steps out with him after paying the driver. “Kibum,” she says demurely, and puts a hand on his arm, “I just want to say that I’m very sorry about entering your name without telling you. Don’t feel pressured to do this if you don’t want to.”

Kibum looks at her incredulously. “Excuse me?” he says, swatting the hand off. This earns him a reproachful look from the middle-aged office lady stepping around them to catch a cab, and Kibum resists the urge to stick his tongue out at her. “Who’s the one who told me I had to go through with it or else I’d be uninvited from her wedding and excommunicated for months?”

Nicole laughs, and gives Kibum a quick peck on the cheek. “Jinwoon told me to say it,” she says. “Duh. If you try to back out now, I’m uninviting you from my wedding and excommunicating you for months _and_ I’m going to make a slideshow of all those pictures from our spring break senior year and circulate it amongst our friends.”

“That’s more like it.” Kibum returns the kiss on the cheek, and straightens. “Alright. I’ll see you at dinner?”

Nicole waves at him as he turns around. “Of course! Call me the minute you get out!”

 

\--

 

The interview goes about as well as Kibum imagined it would. He’s not quite sure if he fully convinced his interviewers—a reporter and one of Jonghyun’s managers—that he’s a diehard Kim Jonghyun fan, but he discovered that he didn’t have to dig particularly deep to enthuse a little about how smooth he thought Jonghyun’s voice was (a fact he would only ever admit to Nicole under threat of imminent death).

When the interview runs a week later, Kibum is even pleased to note it doesn’t make him seem like someone desperate for fame or a creepy male fan. To be fair, most of the article consists of gushing about Jonghyun’s widespread appeal, a short biography of Kibum, and the interview, which had been pared down to a few basic questions and then the one response where Kibum had been caught off guard and admitted that he thought Jonghyun was good-looking.

Taemin laughed himself sick when the interview came out, of course, and took a screenshot of it on Jonghyun’s website that he made Jongin include in the monthly SHINE employee newsletter. The number of emails of envy and congratulations Kibum received afterwards had been truly disheartening, and made him realize that the bit about Jonghyun’s widespread appeal apparently hadn’t been exaggeration.

In the meantime, his name is still being dragged through the mud in the comments section of various fansites, and he receives more than a few emails from Jonghyun’s fans, varying from the terrifying to the depressive—Kibum receives at least five in succession from one girl who threatens to kill herself because she hadn’t won the contest, before Nicole blocks the address and firmly tells him to stop reading the emails. Even his alarm, however, pales in comparison to the steadily increasing traffic—and press coverage, always crucial in the nonprofit sector—they’ve been receiving, and Kibum doesn’t care if he’s just riding off the coattails of Jonghyun’s fame, he would’ve pretended to be the fans of male idols a million times more embarrassing if he’d known it would’ve given them this jolt.

The day of his date arrives much sooner than Kibum feels comfortable with, despite the massive post-it countdown Taemin had been keeping on his office door.

Their boss actually makes Kibum take the day off work (“but—I have so much work to do still—” “Just get me an autograph, Kim.”), so Kibum finds himself trying to pass time by watching a few of Jonghyun’s interviews and live performances, so he’ll at least have _something_ to talk about, if all else fails. In the end, he can’t decide if Jonghyun is entertainingly cocky or annoyingly cocky, though he ends up watching enough radio appearances and mic-removed performances (Kibum gives up any pretense of shame at this point) that he realizes Kim Jonghyun, especially for a company-manufactured pop idol, is devastatingly talented.

This is the state in which Nicole finds him when she comes over to help him prepare for the date: Kibum sitting on his couch with his laptop on his chest, idly clicking through the parts of a Chinese game show Jonghyun had appeared on a few months ago.

“Um,” Nicole says pointedly upon entrance, and Kibum’s attempts to hastily click away only reveal the Jonghyun photoshoot he was most adamantly _not_ thinking about saving. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far? I don’t think Jonghyun’s going to be suspicious if you don’t intimately know his AnAn photo shoot.”

“Shut up,” Kibum responds through gritted teeth, still trying to click away and only further damning himself. “I was doing _research_ , okay.”

“Doing research…on his biceps?” Nicole asks archly, nodding to the shirtless picture of Jonghyun that he just can’t seem to close.

Kibum finally slams the laptop cover shut, and throws the offending object onto the other side of his couch, as if it’s its fault somehow. “Why don’t you just go on the date?” he asks, trying to sound winning but probably only sounding desperate. “I can dress you up like me and shave your head, I bet no one would even notice.” He cheers up a bit, imagining Nicole _bald_. Jinwoon would kill him, but it’d be so worth it. “I bet you’d look really good with a shaved head. And it’d probably grow back in time for your wedding! How ‘bout it, Nicole? What’s one measly hair-shaving compared to a date with Kim Jonghyun?”

“Sorry, lover boy,” Nicole says cheerfully, and walks over to his dresser, opening it to sift through his shirts. “It’s too late now, especially after you milked his fans for thousands of dollars worth of donations.”

Kibum perks up at that. “I really did, didn’t I,” he says, so satisfied that he even allows Nicole to manhandle him into his nicest button-down shirt, the one he usually saves for job interviews and dinner with his parents, and the silk tie she had given him for Christmas last year.

 

\--

 

“Whoa.”

Somehow, that is not the first thing Kibum thought Kim Jonghyun would say to him when they met. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t that—or, to be honest, any of this. He’s sitting in the lobby area of one of Seoul’s nicest hotels per his agreement with Jonghyun’s manager with regards to a pickup point, feeling a bit like Julia Roberts in _Pretty Woman_ , minus the hideous blonde wig and the hooker background. So, in retrospect, actually nothing like Julia Roberts in _Pretty Woman_ , just out of his comfort zone and in way, way over his head. He’d almost gotten up and left when he spotted the representative of one of their corporate sponsors walk in, but the thought of going down in Kim Jonghyun fandom history as the pedestrian who stood him up made him bite his tongue, instead ducking his head and fiddling with the clasps of his coat.

Kibum raises an eyebrow, giving Jonghyun a discreet once-over. He really is on the short side in person, standing a few centimeters shorter than Kibum, and his skin up close, Kibum notes with a weird sense of satisfaction, isn’t particularly blemish-free. None of the pictures had lied about the confident set of his jaw and the charm of his lopsided smirk though, and Kibum feels the faint pull of attraction low in his belly before he can think better of it.

“Hi to you too,” he says dryly, standing up. He sticks his hand out after sizing up the man standing behind Jonghyun and making sure wasn’t going to tackle him to the ground. “I’m Kim Kibum.”

“Kim Jonghyun.” Jonghyun’s grasp is firm and the smile he flashes him is all idol. “It’s a good reaction, don’t worry. You’re just not what I would’ve pictured when I think of ‘male fan.’” He gestures at Kibum, taking in with the sweep of his hand the crisp button-down, the tie, and the slim chinos Kibum had argued with Nicole about for a whole fifteen minutes. The smile this time comes slower, and with an appreciative—there is no better word for this—leer that takes its time somewhere around the clean lines of Kibum’s shoulders before reaching his eyes, and Kibum feels his heart, that traitor, flutter a little. “Actually, you kind of look like an accountant.”

Kibum files this information away in his ‘to tell Nicole’ folder—Kim Jonghyun is sleazy, but also kind of bad at being sleazy.

“Well,” Kibum responds, before his mind can catch up to his mouth, “no need to worry about my dedication. I assure you that your name is tattooed right next to your mother’s on my ass.” Then his mind catches up, and his own mouth drops open just as the man behind Jonghyun coughs discreetly to mask what sounds like a surprised bubble of laughter. “Um. I meant that in the most respectful way possible?”

Jonghyun, who looks momentarily caught off guard, shakes off the surprise before cracking up, a sudden, incredulous laugh that is in no way refined. A few well-groomed heads swivel around at the sound, and Kibum kind of wants to curl underneath the sofa and never come out. He’s not sure which will come first—death by embarrassment, or death at the hands of thousands of teenage girls. He’s not sure which he’d prefer, either. Jonghyun, however, sounds downright _gleeful_ when he says, “This was unexpected.” The hand he puts on Kibum’s elbow is comfortable and not unlike a friend’s, and he leads Kibum towards the door with a flourish.

Kibum lets out a surprised bark of laughter at that, and lets himself be led out. The tight ball of anticipation and nerves within him starts to unwind, and he finds welling up within him a deep, deep sense of relief that Kim Jonghyun, at least, has a sense of humor. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, blinking rapidly. He figures that if it works for Taemin, who uses the tactic to get out of any deadline or prior commitment with a 98% success rate, it can’t hurt to tack it on. “Where are we going?” he asks once they’re outside, and Jonghyun leads him to a waiting car.

“Ah,” Jonghyun says as he opens the door for Kibum (a careless, gentlemanly gesture Kibum takes careful note of—for _Nicole_ , of course, not because he’s impressed), sliding in after him. “Did you read the agreement my manager sent over? We’re heading to a restaurant nearby; MNet’s going to film us for a bit. But I promise I’m all yours after that.”

The smirk he shoots at Kibum is more showy insinuation than anything else, and Kibum, to his surprise, catches himself faintly wishing this were a real date. In his defense, it’s been a while, and Jonghyun is surprisingly pleasant company, not to mention easy on the eyes. His hair is soft and unstyled, and the blue v-neck sweater he’s wearing cuts a fine contrast with the sharp dip of his collarbones.

“I don’t think you can handle me,” Kibum responds decisively, leaning back. “I’m not some teenager you can buy off with an autograph and an eye smile, you know.”

“I knew you were too good to be true,” Jonghyun sighs dramatically, tapping his fingers on the windowsill. When Kibum looks over, though, there’s a bright smile snaking its way across Jonghyun’s face. When he turns to Kibum, the genuineness is dazzling. “Thank you.” 

Kibum is saved from having to think of a way to respond to that smile by their arrival at the restaurant, a chic date spot that seems primed for their arrival. There’s a camera trained on the car as it pulls up with MNet’s familiar logo on the side, and Kibum can see some staff members ushering curious passersby along. But he is suddenly hit with a wave of worry and guilt, and he grabs Jonghyun’s elbow just as his hand curls around the door handle.

“Wait,” he says, biting his lip.

“What’s up?” Jonghyun asks, raising an eyebrow. “Scared of a little press coverage?”

“No, that’s not exactly it,” Kibum says, rolling his eyes. “I just mean—well, now that you know I’m not really—aren’t you worried it won’t work out? I don’t want to mess it up for you or something.”

Jonghyun laughs at Kibum’s worry, and actually pats his hand. “Just laugh at everything I say and look appropriately cowed for fifteen minutes, and I’ll do the rest. Besides,” he says, that unrefined, un-idol-like smile back on his face, “it’s much better this way—trust me. I’d much rather be having dinner with you than a teenager I can buy off with an autograph and an eye smile.”

 

\--

 

It is not until they’re getting their entrees that Kibum feels like he can finally breathe easy. He had followed Jonghyun’s instructions through the soup and salad and then the dessert, which they’d filmed out of order to get out of the way. He thinks his smitten teenager impression had been pretty convincing, especially during dessert, when he’d batted his eyelashes at Jonghyun as he fed him a piece of cake. Jonghyun had almost choked trying to muffle his laughter, but there were so many encouraging coos from the staff that Kibum felt vindicated.

“Thanks for your hard work.” Jonghyun is bowing to the MNet director and staff, who are all packing up save the one cameraman who’s staying behind to capture any particularly precious moments.

“I’m hungry,” Kibum complains, though he makes sure to pitch his voice low, trying and mostly succeeding at keeping the whine out of his voice. “Going on dates with idols is hard.”

Jonghyun looks amused when he sits back down. “Try being the idol,” he says, picking up his fork and knife.

“No thanks,” Kibum says, shivering a bit. “Believe it or not, I like walking down the street without knowing that I could be accosted at any moment by a stranger who knows my waist and shoe size.”

“Oh, you mean that’s not normal?” Jonghyun pulls a face in between bites of his steak. “That doesn’t happen as often as you’d think, though. Believe it or not, a lot of this,” here he gestures to his face and hair, “comes off once the cameras stop rolling.”

Kibum snickers, before throwing his fork down in a display of mock-anger. “You mean I’ve been in love with a lie this whole time?” he cries.

“ _Hey_ ,” Jonghyun says, brows furrowed, and Kibum worries for a quick second that he’s actually offended him. Then he bursts out laughing, and lowers his voice so the camera won’t pick up on his next words. “Besides, who’s tricking who here? You still haven’t told me how this happened, by the way.”

Kibum groans. Nicole is going to be _so_ mad at him later, he can feel it already. “My best friend is a big fan,” he finally mumbles, shoveling pasta in his mouth, “and signed me up without telling me to up her chances. I think your people thought it’d make a good story. I oversee development for a nonprofit,” he adds, in anticipation of Jonghyun’s next question.

Jonghyun nods. “It _is_ a good story,” he says, so absentmindedly calculating that it gives Kibum a better understanding of what it must feel like to be an idol than any number of expository articles or documentaries. “Still doesn’t explain why you agreed to it, though.”

“Well,” Kibum says slowly, drawing out the syllables, “it’s been really good for business?” He holds his breath a little—it’s one thing to do it, and another thing entirely to admit it to the person whose fame he’s taking advantage of.

Jonghyun, who is apparently hell-bent on proving himself to be extraordinary tonight, sits back in his chair and downright _cackles_ for so long the cameraman gets bored of filming it and starts taking artistic wide-angle shots of the ceiling instead.

“ _Oh my God, can you stop_ ,” Kibum hisses, bright red and horrified, tossing a hunk of bread at Jonghyun, who catches it and folds it into his napkin, still giggling. The cameraman is suddenly interested again and Kibum feels helpless and light-headed, a bubble of laughter rising in his chest. Before long, he is laughing too—this is _ridiculous_ , he is on a _date_ with _Kim Jonghyun_ for the sole purpose of extorting money from his fans for his _nonprofit_. He’s not sure how this happened, and if it makes him a bad person or just resourceful. He’d much prefer the latter, but he has a sneaking suspicion he’d crossed the line of morality some time ago.

“A man after my own heart,” Jonghyun says, a hint of laughter still chasing his words. His eyes are crinkled in amusement when he looks back up at Kibum. “I should hire you. So, what does this nonprofit of yours do?”

Kibum lights up. He can’t help it—he’s fiercely protective and proud of what he does, though it’s hard not to be. He was there when The SHINE Project consisted of just ten staff in their main Seoul office and the manpower of a handful of volunteers. In the few years since Kibum’s been there, he’s seen it grow to its current size of about twenty-five main staff and two branch offices.

Somehow, he ends up telling Jonghyun about it all—about the aimless year he’d spent in San Francisco after college, and how unhappy he’d been towards the end; how moving back had been the best decision he’d ever made, and how Nicole proved once and for all that she knows best and took him to church against his protests. He didn’t—still doesn’t—necessarily believe in God, but church grounded him and, most importantly, gave him something to do. Jonghyun quietly finishes his steak and calls for a bottle of wine as Kibum tells him about the first few months as a volunteer at SHINE, how Nicole had let him complain almost everyday for two months about its inefficiency, until he’d realized that he loved it, that he, inexplicably, loved sending emails rescheduling meetings and interviewing college students for their sincerity and writing grant proposals.

He is two glasses of wine deep when he finally tells Jonghyun about what else they do, about the legal services for LGBTQ-identifying refugees they provide but can’t advertise. He is thankful the cameraman had packed up and left ages ago; he trusts Jonghyun with the information, he thinks, but not public television. It is not until Jonghyun’s phone vibrates on the table between them, making them both jump, that he snaps his mouth closed, suddenly embarrassed—he must’ve been talking for close to an hour now, judging by the emptiness of the restaurant.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jonghyun mutters, turning off his phone. “It’s just my manager.”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” Kibum responds, mortified. “Wow, I am so sorry. That must’ve been so boring for you, God, I can’t believe I just babbled like that, why didn’t you stop me—”

“Kibum,” Jonghyun cuts in gently but firmly, and Kibum finds the words dying away. “Trust me, I would’ve stopped you if I thought it was boring.” He cracks a smile, gesturing to himself with his own glass of wine. “Do I look like someone who listens to people out of politeness?” Then he seems to think about it for a second. “I mean, off-duty anyway.”

Kibum meets Jonghyun’s gaze, open and frank, for a few seconds before dropping his eyes from his face. “Well, still,” he says, feeling touched and wishing he didn’t.

The silence they sit in after that is drawn out but comfortable. It isn’t until Kibum chances a look at his watch that he breaks it with a yelp.

“What is it now?” Jonghyun asks, look of amusement crossing his face.

“Oh my God,” Kibum says, “it’s 10:30. I am so sorry. You must have things you have to do, I’m sorry I kept you for so long.” He shoots a helpless look at Jonghyun, frustrated first at his own agitation, and again at Jonghyun’s kindness.

“Can you _stop apologizing_ ,” Jonghyun sighs, rolling his eyes. “It’s a Friday. I have a life too, you know.”

“I _know_ ,” Kibum says, and is a little distraught to hear the note of anguish in his voice. “That’s what I’m saying. Surely you want to spend your Friday night with—with friends, or _something_. Not some stranger who pretended to be your fan as a _fundraising stunt_.”

Jonghyun makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat, waving his hand. “Do you only hear what you want to hear or something?” Kibum’s mouth snaps shut at this, and thinks briefly about feeling affronted at this, before deciding that it might also be kind of true. “What I meant was, I am very capable of choosing what I want to do. And,” he continues, looking uncertain now, “don’t you think _this_ —” here, he gestures between them, “—counts as a friendship at this point?”

Kibum nervously pats flat the hair falling over his eyes, trying and failing to contain the blush he knows is spreading over his face, blotchy and obvious. “Well, of course,” he finally bursts out haughtily, because Kibum’s defense mechanism, for better or for worse, has always been arrogance. “I’m not _completely_ immoral. You’re buying me dinner; the least I could do is be your friend.”

 

\--

 

Kibum manages to avoid Nicole for twelve hours, almost a new record, before the rhythmic banging is back at his door, the trill of her voice high even through the wood. “ _Kibum, I want you to know that I am very upset with you right now and the only explanation I will accept for your blatant disrespect of my feelings is that you went home with—_ ”

Kibum groans and rushes to pull the door open, shushing her. “Nicole, I have _neighbors_ ,” he hisses. “Please do not spread false rumors about me in my apartment building.”

Nicole elbows past him, dusting the snow off her hood. “Should’ve thought of that when you didn’t call me last night,” she sniffs. “You’re lucky I had to have breakfast with my mom this morning, or else I would’ve been here at the crack of dawn.”

“Yes,” Kibum says as he closes his door, “please, Nicole, come into my house. Get snow everywhere. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to my chocolate while you’re at it, why don’t you.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Nicole has a handful of M&Ms when Kibum sits down next to her, resigned to the fact that he will never have control of his own life ever again, and is picking out all the brown ones when she turns to him and demands, “So? How was it?”

Kibum hesitates, not sure how to tell her. “It was good,” he says cautiously. “He’s really—nice. The food was good. He gave me his number.” This last part he says quickly and casually, but also loudly and too pleased, wanting Nicole to hear it.

Nicole, ever the perfect best friend, shrieks, and M&Ms fly everywhere.

“Nicole!” Kibum yelps. “I’ll be cleaning those out of my couch for ages!”

Nicole is suddenly bearing down on him, one hand fisted in the collar of his sweater, eyes terrifying. “I am going to _kill_ you,” she says, sounding positively thrilled. “There is only one way you can survive, and that is to tell me everything. _Now_.”

“I didn’t ask for it!” Kibum puts up his hands defensively, as if he is being blamed for something. Nicole’s grip on his sweater tightens, impossibly. “We just—we had dinner and I was being an idiot and talking for forever and then he gave me his number. Must have been my charm.”

He ducks his head, letting the smile spread across his face. He’s still feeling a little giddy—when Jonghyun had asked for his phone in the car on the way back to his apartment last night after a brief but intense staring contest where Kibum had said he was fine taking the bus home but Jonghyun insisted, he’d handed it over absentmindedly, not thinking anything of it. The next second, Jonghyun’s phone was emitting a truly appalling sound and when Kibum looked over, Jonghyun had a decidedly satisfied look on his face, both phones open in front of him.

“I added you on Kakao Talk too,” he’d said, as if it were normal for internationally renowned 26-year-old pop idols to give Kim Kibum their phone number. “Let’s hang out again some other time; this was fun.”

“Oh my God,” Nicole says wonderingly. “I should kill you now and save everyone the trouble.”

“And deprive you of the ability to be queen of gossip for the next few months?” Kibum raises his eyebrows at Nicole, who looks torn between her responsibility to the greater good and her responsibility to herself. “Anyway, it’s really not a big deal, he’s just a regular guy.”

Nicole moans a little, finally letting go of his shirt. “Just a regular guy,” she mutters. “Honestly, this is wasted on you. You know, if you really don’t want his number, you could always just give it to me!”

The eyebrow waggling she gives him is comical, and Kibum pretends to think about it for a whole five seconds before sticking his tongue at her. “Not a chance,” he says, grinning.

Nicole pouts. “It’s wasted on you. You’re not even going to _do_ anything with it,” she points out.

The smile Kibum gives her this time is beatific. “What are you talking about? I’m going to sell the information online and retire into obscurity a very rich man.”

 

\--

 

As it turns out, Kibum is glad he didn’t sell Jonghyun’s personal contact information online for a profit come Monday morning. He is sitting at his desk tiredly reading over this fiscal year’s operating plan for what feels like the fifteenth time, second cup of coffee at his elbow, when their secretary, Sulli, knocks.

“Kibum-sunbae?” she asks. There is a strange hesitant quality to her voice that makes Kibum look up, years of conditioning making him dread the worst.

“Ye-es?” he responds slowly, not sure he wants to know.

“There’s a—package for you at the front,” she says, and this time her eyes dart down and she licks her lips. “You, um, you need to sign for it.” Her voice rises to a hint of a question at the end of this last statement, and Kibum stands up.

“Okay,” he says, rounding the desk. “What is it?” Everyone in the office seems to be craning their necks a bit at the commotion at the front, though the ones who sit outside Kibum’s office start rather obviously when he walks out. Kibum stares at each and every one of them, waiting until he has made eye contact before communicating with his eyebrows, _I have all of your financial information and I will ruin you personally if I have to_. That seems to do the trick, if the sudden flurry of productivity is any indication.

“You just really have to see it.” Sulli, who seems to have made up her mind on letting Kibum reach his own decision on this package, says this firmly.

Heart sinking a little, Kibum cautiously eyes their mailman, who raises a cheerful hand as they near. Taemin is not even pretending to be discreet—he is leaning in the doorway of the break room, blatantly staring. Jongin peeks out from behind him, though it is unclear whether he is there of his own volition or because Taemin is physically blocking his ability to exit.

“Hey, Kibum.” Minho, who always looks like he just walked out of either a romantic comedy or a middle-aged office lady’s wet dream—that is, tall, handsome, and in a mailman’s outfit—smiles at him. “I’ve got a pretty hefty package for you here, if you could just sign.” This is when he brings out the giant envelope from where it had been conveniently placed out of Kibum’s line of sight behind Sulli’s desk.

Kibum stops in his tracks.

Minho waves his electronic clipboard at him encouragingly, as if trying to persuade a small animal of his harmlessness. Sulli, that traitor, takes his elbow and leads him forward. He numbly signs where he is told to, and then, with a parting wink from Minho the cliché, he is left with a gigantic envelope easily as tall as him were he to stand it on his side, and questions whose answers he is pretty sure he doesn’t want to know.

There is a sound from the doorway of the break room that sounds like someone plotting his ultimate downfall by public humiliation. Sure enough, when Kibum looks over, Taemin has his iPhone out and pointed right at him. _Say cheese_ , he mouths, and Kibum gives him the finger, propriety be damned. Jongin and Sulli both look a bit scandalized.

“Wow, hyung,” Jongin says to break the silence, sounding kind of excited. At the look Kibum shoots him, he quickly changes tack. “I mean. Wow. Hyung.”

“Can you open it already,” Taemin huffs. “The time limit on this video is running out.”

Kibum regains his voice. “What if it’s anthrax?” he whispers fearfully. “Or—or, what if someone hates us a lot and sent us a gigantic naked photo of JYP?” When even Sulli looks at him askance, he knows he is being particularly stupid. He takes another breath. “Okay,” he says, trying to psych himself up.

Sulli helpfully offers her chair to him and he sits down in it, dragging the envelope around the desk with him. It’s not very heavy, which doesn’t quite assuage his anthrax—or gigantic naked JYP—concerns. The front of the envelope is disarmingly unhelpful, with nothing more than his name and work address and a P.O. box for the return address. Running his hands along it, he finds the corner of the envelope and starts to tear.

After a minute of tearing, Kibum looks up to at least ten pairs of eyes on him. In addition to Sulli, Taemin, and Jongin, the majority of Accounting and Communications has gotten out of their seats, some pretending to get coffee from the break room but most just blatantly crowded behind him or peeking over Sulli’s desk, waiting with what sounds like bated breath. He manages to rip the top off the envelope and grab the edge of whatever is inside, which feels like a giant piece of paper.

The unwieldy size of the damn thing makes him struggle to pull it out, and he eventually settles for just grabbing it lengthwise and standing up, letting the envelope slide off and onto the floor. Unsurprisingly, he is an idiot and grabbed it so that the back is to him. There is a sound that sounds very much like someone dropping a cup of coffee onto Jongin’s shoes, and Jongin’s ensuing yelp.

“What is it?” he calls out in the general direction, shaking it a bit. “Can someone help me turn this around?”

Sulli rushes to help him, just as everyone around him bursts out in surprised but excited chatter. When Kibum sees the front of the piece of paper, which turns out to be a check, he suddenly understands the need to drop a cup of coffee.

It is a gigantic check almost the size of him for ten million won, cheerfully made out to The SHINE Project.

“Oh my God. I think I need to sit down,” he says weakly. Sulli hurriedly pushes out her chair again, propping the check up against her desk. This starts the mass exodus of people who come up to look at it and then Kibum curiously, as if he has any better understanding of the situation than them.

“Oh, sunbae, I think there’s a note.” Sulli points to the annoyingly neon green slip of paper at his feet that had also fallen out of the envelope.

Curious, he picks it up and flips it over. There are three lines of cheerful scribble in English on it, and Kibum squints at it for a few uncomprehending seconds before the words register, though it somehow does not do anything to make the situation any clearer.

_Yo!_  
Dinner was great!  
 KJH  

Kibum puts his head in his hands, and admits defeat.

After a few minutes of wallowing, he slowly gets up.

“I,” he announces at 10:43AM, “am going to take my lunch break now.”

The minor crowd that has gathered at Sulli’s desk parts to let him pass, neon green note still crumpled in his hand. Kibum would feel like Moses if he didn’t actually know his life was a huge joke.

He walks upstairs to the storage room where they keep physical copies of their press releases and old tax forms and sits at the desk Taemin put there for when he wanted to be really mean to Jongin. He takes out his phone, and calls a number he never thought he would use.

After a few seconds of ringing, Jonghyun’s somewhat breathless voice comes on over the phone.

“Hello?”

“You _psycho_ —oh my _God_ —” is all Kibum is able to get out before he is laughing helplessly, not caring that he probably sounds insane, that he just called up Kim Jonghyun in what is probably the middle of filming or some other idol nonsense for the sole purpose of telling him he’s a psycho for donating ten million won to his nonprofit.

Jonghyun waits patiently for Kibum to be done. “So,” he says, voice as smooth over the phone as it was in real life. “I take it this means you got it then?” The pride and excitement in his voice is unmistakable, and Kibum gets the distinct impression that if Jonghyun were a dog, his tail would be wagging very excitedly right about now.

“Of course I got it,” Kibum says, tipping his chair back and loosening the top button of his button-down. He runs a hand through his hair, euphoria making him feel kind of inebriated. “I can’t believe you did this. I—honestly, I don’t know whether I should thank you or if I should file a restraining order.”

“Please not the restraining order. My manager would hate that,” Jonghyun deadpans. “Anyway, you mean this isn’t what you expected? Isn’t it why you went to dinner with me in the first place?” His words make Kibum wince a bit, but the tone he uses is gentle and teasing, and Kibum decides Jonghyun is just giving him a hard time to be mean.

“You do this for all your fans?” Kibum wonders. “What am I still doing with a job then?”

Jonghyun laughs. “Who knows?” he asks, amused. “You should probably quit right now and devote your life to worshipping me full-time. Anyway, listen, I gotta run—I’m in the middle of filming a talk show. But you should text me! Bye!”

With these last words, said rather imperiously, Jonghyun hangs up on Kibum.

Kibum’s fingers hesitate over the keypad for a second before typing a quick message and pressing send before he can properly regret it, or even ask himself what it is he thinks he’s doing.

_So demanding…_ ╥╥

 

\--

 

Kibum takes the rest of that day off work—he can’t really afford it, especially not at this time of the year, but it wasn’t as if anyone in the office was going to deny him anything at that point. Even Taemin had looked sincerely admiring, a feat he hasn’t achieved since college.

Jonghyun somehow wrangles a late dinner and drinks out of him that night and they spend more than half the night in tears of laughter, knees knocking as they sit crowded around a table too small for two in the corner of the kind of dive bar Kibum’s only pretended to outgrow. Jonghyun, it turns out, is not quite the sheltered idol princess Kibum thought all idols were, and instead possesses a wicked sense of humor combined with a hilariously over-inflated ego just begging to be needled.

The owner kicks them out at one in the morning, looking cross but amused. Kibum supposes they probably do look a little silly—Kibum in the neon high-top sneakers he wears whenever he isn’t at work and by-now crumpled blazer, Jonghyun with a pair of douchebag Ray Bans perched on his head and an ugly fisherman’s sweater, trying not to look famous despite the obvious multiple-digit price tag on everything he is wearing.

There is a surprisingly number of people out on the streets, considering the fact that it’s a Monday, but maybe not considering the fact that they chose a dive bar in one of Seoul’s hippest new neighborhoods. Jonghyun catches a pair of beautiful girls in dark lipstick eyeing him, looking torn between approaching him and keeping their cool, and winks at them; Kibum rolls his eyes and elbows him, until one turns an appreciative eye onto him as well.

“We could have some fun tonight,” Jonghyun says after a low, long whistle, jerking his chin towards them. He raises his eyebrows suggestively, but his tone is light and he turns away from them on his own accord. The arm he throws around Kibum’s shoulders surprises him at first, and he wonders if Jonghyun is tipsier than the four beers would have otherwise suggested, but the contact isn’t unpleasant and Kibum is a notorious cuddle-hog, so he lets it stay.

“I’m not really into that, I have to say,” Kibum responds dryly. “It’s also a Monday. I got to play hooky today but best believe my boss is going to make my ass work overtime tomorrow to make up for it.”

“Real tough,” Jonghyun drawls in false sympathy, bobbing his head. “Try being in variety show tapings from seven ‘til midnight, and then we can talk.”

“Try working overtime crunching numbers,” Kibum shoots back, jabbing his elbow into Jonghyun’s side.

Jonghyun seems to consider this even as he steps out into the street to hail a cab, letting his arm fall from Kibum’s shoulders. “Nah,” is his final verdict as a taxi slows to a stop in front of them. “I’d much rather crunch numbers than be forced to recount the mostly fabricated story of my first love for five different networks.” He holds the door open for Kibum, tipping his head, that easy, open smile on his face. “Wanna share a cab?”

Kibum considers it for a second, then slides in. “Only if you’re paying,” he says decidedly, settling back into the seat.

“So disrespectful,” Jonghyun grouses as he gets in, but when Kibum looks, the smile still isn’t gone. “People would kill to be in your position, you know.”

“What’s the fun in respectful?” Kibum asks, stretching his legs out and yawning. This incites no response from Jonghyun other than a snort, and they sit in shared, comfortable silence after they each give the driver their addresses.

The cab is overly warm, even for the nippy late-winter weather, and Kibum finds himself nodding off to the dulcet tones of top 100 radio that the driver is playing. It feels like only a few minutes have passed when Jonghyun nudges him gently. “This you?” he asks, jerking his head towards the window. Behind him is Kibum’s apartment building, neat and compact.

“Ah, yeah,” Kibum says, palming the sleep in his eyes away. “Thanks. Oh, right, here, let me—”

Jonghyun closes a hand around the money clip Kibum is trying to extract from his pocket, shaking his head. “Only if I’m paying, right?” He grins, bright even in the dim lighting of the cab’s backseat.

“Oh, come on, I didn’t mean that—I was supposed to treat you today,” Kibum protests, though he lets himself be pushed out of the cab by Jonghyun.

“Wait a second please,” Jonghyun tells the cab driver as he follows Kibum out, slipping him a bill so discreetly Kibum is impressed in spite of himself. “Tell you what,” Jonghyun says, leaning into Kibum a little once they’re outside, hand on the doorframe of the car. “You should come to my birthday party. It’s in a few weeks. If you get me a really good birthday present, we’ll call it even.”

He winks at Kibum at that, biting his lip in an exaggeration of coyness, and hops back into the cab even before Kibum can close his mouth and summon up a properly polite thanks-but-no-thanks.

 

\--

 

Kibum pays for his night of indiscretion the following week in spades, almost kissing Jongin when he starts coming in every other hour with a fresh cup of coffee for Kibum. The ensuing horror on his face is almost worth it, almost as much as Taemin somehow managing to show up behind Jongin immediately afterwards to steer him away, gently berating Kibum for manhandling his intern.

“Who would want to manhandle Jongin anyway,” Kibum grumbles. Jongin flashes him a kind of kicked-puppy look at that, and Kibum bares his teeth at him. Jongin hurriedly shuffles in the opposite direction of Kibum’s office to do some very important stapling, Taemin following so closely he’s almost stepping on the backs of his shoes.

He is surprised to find by the end of the next week, once his workload has lessened considerably, that Jonghyun has somehow finagled his way into the regular rotation of people he texts when he needs to complain about work, about a recent scandal involving his favorite basketball player, or to send a picture of the freak pair of chopsticks he got with his takeout once.

Jonghyun is extremely diligent about responding and prone to sending inane selcas of him doing terribly mundane things, to the point that if Nicole didn’t keep emailing him links to Jonghyun’s latest performances or show appearances, Kibum would almost be able to believe Jonghyun was just another one of his college friends, working a mildly-trendy white-collar job in some fancy high-rise, available every weekend to unwind over morning drinks at the latest brunch place.

In any case, he most decidedly is not, and there are some times when Kibum is made all too aware of this fact. The first time, he gets an email from Jonghyun with a new number followed by a ‘ _^^; sorry!_ ’; his phone had, apparently, been stolen by an intrepid makeup assistant who was quickly replaced, though the phone and the number had to be discarded. Not that Jonghyun told him any of this, of course—he only found out because Nicole had emailed him almost immediately afterwards with a link to the news.

All in all, Kibum very adamantly does not have the _time_ to be a playmate for a bored idol, so of course he finds himself becoming fast good friends with Jonghyun, who, though not an especially trusting person, seems to trust Kibum unequivocally. Kibum, who is impatient but generous with his friendships, is charmed by Jonghyun in more than just a friendly way, loathe as he is to admit it. There’s a healthy amount of attraction that sustains his investment in the friendship, though even Kibum doesn’t want to think about his expectations. No one is more surprised that the friendship manages to last past those first few weeks than Kibum, though no one is more delighted than Nicole.

Kibum ends up bringing her along to Jonghyun’s birthday party—to be fair, if he hadn’t, he’s pretty sure he would’ve been excommunicated and/or mysteriously disappeared. Nicole had a lot of friends, and a lot of favors to call in.

They are greeted at Jonghyun’s apartment door after a short taxi ride by a flash and a whirring sound. Jonghyun’s grin is borderline maniacal behind the Polaroid camera, and he waves the picture he just took in Kibum’s face obnoxiously, even as Kibum makes a halfhearted snatch at it. The thump of the bass, which had been muffled on their elevator ride up, is much more noticeable, making Kibum suddenly feel much too sober for what the music seems to dictate.

“Hi!” he says, enthusiastically enveloping Kibum in a one-armed hug. “Glad you could come! Where’s my present?”

Nicole is barely able to contain her laughter at that, and Jonghyun turns to her, million-watt smile in full effect even as he collects the package Kibum holds out for him. “I’m Kim Jonghyun,” he says with a light touch of the easy swagger Kibum had thought was part of his act but that had turned out to be 100% genuine.

Nicole takes the proffered hand and the Polaroid from Jonghyun’s other hand. “I know,” she says, all cheek, and Kibum can tell Jonghyun is impressed. “I’m Nicole.” Kibum had never met someone whose smile actually lit up his or her whole face until he’d met Nicole, whose face seemed to be made for smiling.

“Wow,” Jonghyun responds, lingering on the handshake. “Is this your infamous friend, Kibum? Wish you’d gone on the date instead of this guy.” He winks at Nicole, who pulls her hand away with a laugh.

“If only,” she says ruefully, before flashing her ring. “I’m set to be married next year. Should’ve gotten to me sooner.”

“If only,” Jonghyun repeats with a dramatic sigh. Then he turns around, ushering them in. “Welcome to my apartment! Come on in! Food is in the kitchen! So are drinks!”

The hand on Kibum’s elbow is firm as it steers him down the hallway and into the main area of Jonghyun’s apartment. “Wow,” he can’t help saying appreciatively. Jonghyun’s apartment is large and open and undeniably _nice_ , decorated in mostly blacks and grays with subtle but blinding hints of neon. They have entered into a small living room area where a group of four impeccably dressed women in their late twenties have congregated, wineglasses with red lipstick stains in hand. Nicole lets out a sound of surprise and bounds over to one of them; pretty soon she is exchanging hugs and cooing her admiration along with everyone else in the group, which seems to have taken Nicole in as one of their own.

“Nicole works in PR,” he says by way of explanation for Jonghyun, whose eyebrows have more or less disappeared under his bangs and is looking more and more impressed by the second. “She knows a ton of fashion bloggers.”

“She could be one herself,” Jonghyun remarks lightly, steering Kibum further along and waving goodbye to Nicole as they pass her. Their next stop is the kitchen, which is small but looks to be outfitted with every stainless steel kitchen accessory created in the past three years. There’s a table shoved against the back wall that seems to have little sandwiches on one side and pizza on the other, and rows of wine and champagne in between. The few people in the kitchen, all of whom kind of look alike, huddle closer together at any little noise, as if afraid that someone might approach them. At the sound of Jonghyun and Kibum’s entrance, they look up briefly, wave a vague and disinterested hello at the pair of them, and then return to their conversation.

“My manager made me invite them,” Jonghyun mutters under his breath to Kibum, as he loops around them to snag a glass and fill it with wine for Kibum. “I have no idea who they are. Come on.”

Kibum laughs dutifully, takes the wineglass, and follows him out of the kitchen into a larger, second living space, where most of the party seems to have congregated. There’s a DJ table against the right wall, and a small bar against the left wall. The lights are soft and dimmed to enhance maximum attractiveness, though it wasn’t as if most of the people in Jonghyun’s living room needed any help in that area. Kibum spots at least two actresses whose last movies he’d cried over, and three artists whose entire discographies he definitely has on his workout playlist. A sunroom off the far end of the room has a line of fairy lights strung around the inside of it, giving the room and everyone inside an ethereal glow.

Kibum feels a little as if he’s been transported to an alternate universe where everyone is polished, attractive, and either mildly or very famous. If he were anyone else, he probably would’ve felt hideously out of his league but, for better or for worse, Kibum’s always had a penchant for the glamorous and the absurd, and this is the kind of situation in which he’s always done the best. All of the friends he made in college were high-achieving big city kids who were effortless at everything they did and who never seemed to want for anything, the beneficiaries of private school educations and absent parents with high expectations.

Kibum, on the other hand, had a country background he was fiercely proud of, an accent he gave up out of necessity but still tended to slip into when excited, and an all-encompassing love for all things tasteful. His first year of college, he’d always felt frustrated he was coming up short, but he was whip smart and spoke well, and he hadn’t worked so hard just so he could be _mediocre_. Jinki, the only boy he had time to date in college, once said Kibum tended to turn into a charming, attractive, and efficient version of himself in strange social situations. He’d been trying to call Kibum cold, but Kibum had just taken it as a recommendation.

Besides, the hand Jonghyun curls around the back of Kibum’s neck is friendly but just slightly possessive, and while Kibum isn’t trying to entertain any outlandish fantasies about their blossoming friendship, it is flattering nonetheless.

“Be cool,” Jonghyun advises him playfully, tugging at the collar of Kibum’s button-down. “And if you turn out to be an extremely conniving gossip magazine columnist, I commend you on doing an incredible job and you deserve whatever scoop it is you get.”

Kibum laughs, shoving him. “I’m not even going to honor that with a response,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It’s kind of insulting that you think I would have time to fool naïve idols into scandals.”

“This is why I like you,” Jonghyun says with relish, taking Kibum’s wineglass out of his hands and taking a long sip of Kibum’s wine, eyes challenging and never leaving Kibum’s. “I have never met someone so difficult to impress. Come over and meet my friends.”

 

\--

 

Kibum, apparently, passes Jonghyun’s weird birthday test with flying colors, if the casual hand on Kibum’s knee by the end of the night and the enthusiastic thanks text the next morning is any indication. All of Jonghyun’s friends seemed to like Kibum well enough, and by the end of the night Kibum had been asked to be in two selcas and had been roped into performing the latest SNSD single, dance included, with CN Blue’s Jonghyun, which he’d only known because Nicole told him later on their way home.

Either way, Jonghyun settles much more comfortably and decidedly into Kibum’s social life, as if he were holding back a little before, and seems well on his way to becoming a permanent fixture. Besides the obvious issue of Jonghyun being incredibly famous, he also maintains a busy and fairly unpredictable schedule, but they still manage to make the time to meet up for drinks every other week or so. A few weeks in, Kibum just forwards him the email invitation to Jinwoon’s birthday, which Jonghyun promises he’ll try to make.

Nicole almost breaks his hand squeezing it when he brings it up.

“Is it a _date_?” she whispers excitedly, reaching over to clutch at his arm, upsetting her coffee cup in the process. This earns her a disapproving look from a waitress that Nicole doesn’t see, so the waitress turns her glare on Kibum instead. “Is this going to be your official coming out statement? I will even forgive you for not telling me earlier, I understand the pressures of having a famous boyfriend. It must be very hard on you.”

“ _No_ ,” Kibum says emphatically, righting the coffee cup and smiling apologetically at the waitress who is now sighing rather audibly as she cleans up the puddle of coffee on the table. “We are _friends_ , Nicole. And besides, I don’t even know if he’ll come. He’s busy.”

What Kibum doesn’t say is that he really _hopes_ Jonghyun will, but it is an inconvenient, selfish desire. This business of being friends with someone so famous was taking its toll on Kibum already, as gracious and embarrassed as Jonghyun has been about it all. Kibum still receives the odd email through his work account every once in a while, some sycophantic, some threatening. He’s learned to ignore them all by now, amazed and made more than a little uncomfortable by the ardent nature of their fantasy. Most surprising is Jonghyun himself, and how much determined effort he seems to be putting into maintaining their friendship, and how much it seems he values the normalcy of their friendship despite the extraordinary history of it.

So, of course, Jonghyun does come, albeit fifty minutes late and halfway through dessert, cheerfully making his apologies and wishing a happy birthday to Jinwoon, who looks bemused even as he accepts the card Jonghyun pulls out from underneath his jacket, corners slightly bent. Nicole shoots increasingly meaningful looks at Kibum that Kibum categorically ignores.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Jonghyun says, squeezing himself in between Kibum and Woohyun, who widens his eyes comically at Kibum over Jonghyun’s shoulder. “There was a wardrobe malfunction during taping.” He rolls his eyes good-humoredly, raising his shoulders in mock-defeat. “What can you do? Also, my manager wants you to know that he likes you even if you turned out to just be using me for my fame, and that our date will be airing on TV next week.”

Even though Kibum groans and tries to shush him once he could tell where it was going, Jonghyun’s voice seems to grow especially loud around the word _date_ , and there’s the minutest lull in conversation that follows it. The looks Nicole are giving him have grown so intense, Kibum would be afraid of her crawling across the table to shake him if it weren’t for the careless arm Jinwoon has around her waist. Woohyun coughs on Jonghyun’s other side, muffling what sounds like an incredulous laugh.

“Please try ruining my professional and social reputation more,” Kibum hisses at Jonghyun, mortified. He shrinks back into his seat, throwing a desperate glance at Woohyun to _please_ not say anything. “I have spent a very long time trying to purge that from my memory. And now you are reminding me again that my _mother_ is probably going to watch me go on a date with a pop star my fourteen-year-old cousin wants to marry on public television.”

Jonghyun fixes him with a disparaging look over his shoulder. “The other day,” he intones solemnly, despite Kibum’s frantic protests, “my manager told me a group of fans on the Internet created a _fan community_ dedicated to the two of us. Someone has written fanfiction where CN Blue’s Jonghyun kills me because he is jealous of our relationship.” He pauses significantly, that attention-seeking, cocky bastard, well aware that everyone around the table is now giving them their full attention. Woohyun is laughing so hard on Jonghyun’s other side that he is in danger of falling off the side of the table. Kibum glares at him, meanly hoping that he chokes. “And I _read it_.”

This is too much. Kibum lets out a sad, soft shriek, and pulls his hat down over his eyes, even as everyone else bursts out in laughter, reaching over Kibum to pat Jonghyun sympathetically on the shoulder. Jonghyun, on his other side, is solemnly accepting everyone’s condolences, even as Nicole and Jinwoon, the _traitors_ , pull up the story and start passing their phones around, encouraging everyone in a dramatic reading.

“I hate you,” he says dispassionately to Jonghyun from under his hat. “And I regret everything. You are the most depraved person I have ever met, and you have ruined me.”

Jonghyun, cackling now, throws an arm around Kibum’s shoulders. “Cheer up,” he says, and Kibum doesn’t have to look at him to know he is beaming. “Our fan community has over three hundred members! We’re way more popular than mine and my manager’s community.”

Kibum makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and clutches at his hair, sinking even further down in his seat. “You are a very weird, very sick human being,” he informs Jonghyun sadly.

“And you can’t afford to go bald,” is, unfortunately, all Jonghyun has to say to that. The hand that pulls Kibum’s away from his head is absentminded and gentle.

When Kibum looks up, he catches Nicole watching them, a soft and strange expression on her face. For whatever reason, it makes Kibum more uncomfortable than her exaggerated, meaningful ones, no less because of the hint of both pity and yearning that he sees. Whatever it is, it steels his resolve; Kibum _hates_ being on the receiving end of pity, even if he doesn’t quite understand why. He shakes off the arm Jonghyun had slung over his shoulders so easily, as if it were natural for it to be there, determined to show Nicole just how little it all matters.

 

\--

 

Taemin schedules an office-wide screening of the MNet ‘Date with an Idol’ segment featuring Kim Jonghyun the Monday after it airs, complete with email invitations he made the new intern compose on his first day there. Jongin had been offered, and accepted, a full-time position just the week before in a joyous ceremony that had included both ice cream cake and apple cider toasts, even though Taemin had made him order and pick up his own cake. His new position as Communications Coordinator, from what Kibum could tell, consisted of many of the same tasks he’d done when he was Taemin’s intern, except now he was salaried and had an official email signature.

“This is really unnecessary,” Kibum tries to tell the new intern Oh Sehun, who seemed kind of weird but is mostly inoffensively quiet, as he attaches clipart to the email invitation Taemin assigned him to write. “You don’t really have to listen to what Taemin says. I’m higher up than him, anyway.”

“Yes, he does,” Taemin says cheerfully, choosing that moment to walk by with a cup of coffee and a binder tucked under his arm. “And Sehun’s _my_ intern, so it doesn’t matter your position. Carry on, Sehun.”

“You really don’t have to,” Kibum whispers urgently as Taemin walks away, leaning over the side of Sehun’s cubicle to impart upon him the severity of the issue. “It’s not too late to stop, Sehun, you can make a difference.”

Sehun clicks ‘send’ dispassionately, and Kibum watches in despair as it is sent out to the entire office, including the executive director and the board of trustees. Somewhere far away on his desk, his own phone vibrates with the incoming message. “My parents want me to go to business school overseas,” is all Sehun has to say for himself when Kibum looks at him, feeling betrayed.

Two and a half hours later, people begin trickling into the conference room clutching their respective lunches. Taemin and Sehun are busy setting up the projector that budgets and proposals are supposed to be shown on. Kibum again seriously considers getting Taemin fired for misuse of office equipment, for corruption, _something_. Jongin, who’d frog-marched him to the conference room five minutes earlier, obviously under Taemin’s orders, sits down next to him, Pocky sticking out of his mouth. Kibum kicks his chair out of frustration and somewhat misplaced anger and Jongin nervously scoots a little further away.

“Welcome,” Taemin says a minute later, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “As we all know, our very own Kim Kibum was featured on MNet’s ‘Date with an Idol’ just yesterday. To commemorate the occasion, I thought it’d be fun to watch the episode together!” He beams at the collected SHINE employees, who all seem motivated to cheer, including their executive director, who is leaning against the wall and eating pasta salad out of a Tupperware container. Kibum resists the urge to throw the pencil sharpener at Taemin’s face when he makes Sehun dim the lights.

The segment, which turns out to be 42 minutes of humiliation, is more or less as bad as Kibum worried it might be. The MNet staff had apparently thought it appropriate to include a flowery pink border and insert prerecorded _ooh_ s every seven minutes. They actually slow-mo their arrival at the café, complete with background drama OST music, and Kibum puts his head down on the conference room table, counting very slowly backwards from a hundred. Taemin snickers like a madman and innocently offers Kibum the popcorn he specially keeps in his desk for occasions like this.

By around minute 35, Kibum’s brain has decided it has transcended embarrassment, and he finally unfurls his spine, sitting back to watch the program with the level of fascination all reality television seems to dictate. Everyone, including Kibum, laughs at the dessert scene where Jonghyun feeds Kibum cake and Kibum flutters his eyelashes in response, looking appropriately tart-ish.

The last two minutes, to Kibum’s surprise, consists of a camera positioned just under Jonghyun’s face at the most optimally unattractive angle. “Send a video message to Kibum-sshi,” prompts the booming, jovial voice of the overhead narrator.

Kibum watches Jonghyun laugh sheepishly, scratching his head, and tries to swallow around the uncomfortable, expectant feeling in his throat. “Ah,” video-Jonghyun says, squinting and focusing on some distant point, “uh, hey, Kibum. What’s up!” He throws up a V-sign and cracks that lopsided, too-wide smile that makes Kibum want to smack the dorky look off his face. “Dinner was lots of fun. I have to say, you weren’t anything like what I thought you would be. Oh, that’s a good thing, I promise.” He punctuates this with a laugh that’s still just a touch awkward, a last vestige of old insecurities even the shiny idol machine couldn’t quite iron out. The camera shifts, until Jonghyun is staring right into it which, while still isn’t really a good look for him, does force Kibum to acknowledge, yet again, the unfair reality of Jonghyun’s attractiveness. “Thank you for supporting me, and I hope you will continue to do so in the future. Let’s hang out again soon!” He flashes a thumbs-up just as the video fades away.

_That stupid—_ , Kibum finds himself thinking affectionately, unfortunate emotion blooming low in his throat. He is immediately horrified with himself.

By the time Taemin flicks the lights on again after a rousing round of applause and more than a few wistful sighs from their collected co-workers of all genders, Kibum has already left the room and locked himself in his own office where, alone, he is forced to come to the unhappy conclusion of his completely unnecessary attraction to Kim Jonghyun, the best new friend he has made in a while, all-around delightful asshole, and pop idol extraordinaire.

“I just want to help refugees and go to conferences to get free things,” he tells his phone sadly. And then, because his life is a joke, it vibrates with the force of an incoming message—from Jonghyun, of course.

 

\--

 

“I can’t believe I’ve known you for so many months and you’ve never invited me to your place before,” Jonghyun says, kicking his feet up to rest on Kibum’s coffee table, despite Kibum’s explicit ‘ _please don’t put your feet up on my coffee table or I will be forced to break them_.’ He sounds kind of miffed, even as he accepts the beer Kibum hands him. “I can’t believe it took a screaming mob of teenage girls for us to reach this level in our friendship.”

Kibum snorts, rolling his eyes. “It was hardly a screaming mob, Jonghyun,” he says dryly, taking a seat beside him on his couch. They had been coming out of the movie theater after seeing the latest superhero movie when a girl and what seemed to be her entire extended family approached Jonghyun, who had just had a comeback last week, for autographs and photos. Though Jonghyun had politely signed everything they shoved his way, including the side of a still-greasy tub of popcorn, the ensuing crowd had been a little too much to handle. He’d made his excuses while Kibum flagged down a cab for the two of them, giving the driver his address before he had time to wonder how appropriate it was. “Besides, don’t you have, like, late-night dance practice or something? Aren’t idols not supposed to have free time because they’re too busy operating as a cog in the corporate entertainment industry machine?”

Jonghyun cracks up at that, coming dangerously close to spilling his beer on Kibum’s couch. “I paid those dues a long time ago,” he says, amused. “Where do you even get this stuff?”

Kibum pulls a face. “Nicole,” he says evasively, not wanting to own up to the fact that he’s spent way more time than necessary, or healthy, reading fan accounts about Jonghyun. “Don’t you ever get tired of that?” he asks. At Jonghyun’s puzzled look, he elaborates, “You know. The…mobs.”

Jonghyun shrugs. “I kind of enjoy it,” he says. “Not like that, wipe that smirk off your face, Kibum. I mean, it’s a small price to pay, right? I really love what I do. Besides, better screaming mobs than no screaming mobs, you know what I mean?”

Kibum thinks about what Nicole had told him about Jonghyun’s first failed boyband endeavor, and wonders, suddenly, if Jonghyun still keeps in touch with his old bandmates. “I guess,” he finally says. “Personally, I fall on the no screaming mobs side of that argument. But then again, the nonprofit industrial complex isn’t really all that sexy. We don’t usually get mobs, just the odd protest.”

“How come?” Jonghyun asks, tilting his head. He leans over to pull another beer from the six-pack Kibum had placed on the coffee table, throwing his arm up. It comes to rest perilously close to being behind Kibum’s head. Kibum tries to ignore that annoying, now familiar, twinge of attraction, exasperated at himself with the inconvenience of it all. He’s twenty-five with a mostly sensible career path, for God’s sake, he’s not even Jonghyun’s target demographic. 

“Oh, you know,” Kibum says, shrugging. “The refugee thing. And, well, the gay rights thing.”

“Ah, right.” Jonghyun hums, taking an absentminded sip of his beer.

_Ah, right_. The flippancy of Jonghyun’s tone makes Kibum’s head hurt, that choking feeling of expectation back in his throat. Jonghyun has been surprisingly nonchalant about everything and for Kibum, who has gotten defending his choice of career to people without unnecessarily outing himself down to a science, it has left him feeling a little high and dry.

“How come you never asked?” Kibum bursts out, immediately regretting it.

“Asked about what?” Jonghyun turns to look at him, puzzled expression on his face.

“You know,” Kibum struggles to explain in the least damning way. “Me. The gay rights thing. Everyone always does.”

Jonghyun coughs into his fist, that awkward laugh again. “Uh, I don’t know. I figured it didn’t mean much. And even if it did, it’s not like I care either way. What, did you think I would?” There’s an indignant, challenging lilt in his voice when he looks Kibum square in the eye.

“ _No_ ,” Kibum says, rolling his eyes and pushing at Jonghyun’s knee with his own. “It’s just, you know, people always ask.” Here, he hesitates before continuing—he’s always hated this part of coming out, hates the rhetoric of coming out in general. Since college, he’s never bothered to make his sexual proclivities a secret, but since he never made a big deal out of it, people always _assumed_ about him, as if all gay men were supposed to look or act a certain way. It was insulting and Kibum hated it, hated both when people thought he was and when people thought he wasn’t. “And I don’t think it’s important—well, it shouldn’t be important—but you’re my friend and I’m not ashamed. It’s not a secret. So, well. I like men. I’m gay.”

He raises his chin in defiance, though he carefully keeps his gaze ahead, refusing to look at Jonghyun. It’s not that he’s particularly worried, but over the years he’s learned to prepare for the worst.

Next to him, Jonghyun sighs. His hand comes up to rake through his hair, still not saying anything. Kibum tenses, feeling disappointment rise up like bile in his throat. He hates this part—the uncertainty, the brief flash of feeling unsafe, even in his own home.

Just as Kibum is ready to break the silence, figuring he’d given Jonghyun enough time to storm out in disgust, Jonghyun slides over on the couch, knocking his shoulder into Kibum’s. Kibum stares at the suddenly insignificant space between his knee and Jonghyun’s and swallows, palms clammy.

“I figured.” There is something in Jonghyun’s voice that forces Kibum to look at him and, when he meets his honest, open gaze, Kibum is struck by the earnestness of his expression.

“Um,” Kibum says, trying to keep his tone light and having it crack instead. “Oh. What? I don’t—”

“You don’t what?” Jonghyun asks softly and, impossibly, inches closer.

Kibum opens his mouth—to say something, to do damage control, to laugh. What comes out is an entirely unattractive croak. He snaps it shut, watching in wonder as Jonghyun’s eyes follow the action.

“I’m going to,” Jonghyun says and stops, gesturing between them. He seems to think better of it when Kibum just widens his eyes at him, and does it.

The first press of Jonghyun’s mouth against his is hesitant, as if unsure as to whether Kibum would let him; the hand that comes up to palm the juncture of his neck and shoulder less so. And Kibum has to dig deep to dredge up shock—surprise, he has in spades, but the confidence with which Jonghyun kisses him confirms what he’d always suspected, that this was only the natural conclusion to all of that underlying tension.

Even so, Kibum should know better. He really should. There are more than enough reasons why this is a bad idea, and the whole extremely-popular-pop-idol thing isn’t even the top reason on the list. “I shouldn’t,” is all he can manage when Jonghyun pulls away, worry creasing his forehead, before he chases that mouth those two inches back.

Kissing Jonghyun is a wonder in and of itself. Their noses bump when Jonghyun changes the angle of his head, and it sends a shiver down Kibum’s spine, blatant yearning curling low in his stomach. He slides a searching hand up Jonghyun’s front, marveling at the solid muscle, clutching at the soft fabric of Jonghyun’s shirt. It’s selfish, all of this, almost unbearably so—but Kibum has never been good at not wanting. Jonghyun opens his mouth slow and cautious under Kibum’s, as if he’s been thinking about it for so long he too is scared of going too fast. But that would be ridiculous, it really would be—there is nothing Jonghyun is better at and loves more than what he does, and Kibum has always known that even their friendship was a luxury.

But the hand that slides up his neck is possessive, that familiar action suddenly meaningful, the fingers stroking at the short, buzzed hair at the nape of Kibum’s neck careful. When Jonghyun gently but firmly pushes Kibum back into his couch cushions, he lets him.

What surprises Kibum the most is how _easily_ it all comes. How little effort he has to put in for the most satisfying responses—he lightly scratches his fingers through Jonghyun’s hair, pulling a little at the ends, and Jonghyun hums low in his throat. He stops kissing him for one breathless second to turn his face into Kibum’s palm, chasing the sensation up his wrist. Even the open-mouthed kisses Jonghyun presses to Kibum’s collarbone, biting lightly at the thin skin, seems natural. But in the end, these were all, Kibum supposes, in that realm of possibility he couldn’t let himself imagine.

Jonghyun is the one to pull away, though Kibum would like to think he helped.

“I have to go,” Jonghyun says, panting a little. “I’m sorry. I’m _really_ sorry. I have a performance tomorrow.”

“Um,” Kibum says, mind scrambling to catch up. The hand still underneath his shirt is proving to be a significant roadblock, so he sits up, letting it fall. “Right,” Kibum continues as he pushes up from the couch, flushing and nodding vigorously.

“Right,” Jonghyun echoes, tripping a little as he follows Kibum to the door, where he crowds Kibum against the wall. His hands disappear under Kibum’s shirt again, warm against his sides. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Kibum says, a little stunned still, hands coming up to grasp at Jonghyun’s shoulders. “Don’t you, um, have to go?”

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says, smiling, but doesn’t make any attempt at moving.

“Well,” Kibum says after a pregnant pause, feeling flushed and a little tongue-tied, neither of which he is used to. “You should go then.”

Jonghyun laughs at that, burying his face in Kibum’s shoulder as he does. “Okay, okay,” he finally says, teasing lilt in his voice. “I’ll go if you want.”

He steps back, hands up, and Kibum feels bereft. He pulls on his shoes, and then the snapback Kibum had gotten him for his birthday a month earlier. With his sunglasses tucked into his shirt pocket, he looks like a normal 27-year-old man Kibum could date. It is the polish, the practiced motion with which Jonghyun tucks his professionally styled hair under his hat, that reminds him, again, who Jonghyun is.

Jonghyun lets himself out and Kibum, in bed hours later, can still feel his hand from when it fisted itself in his hair for one last bruising kiss.

 

\--

 

Kibum is an adult, but he’s not above lying in bed for a dreamy, lazy half an hour the next morning, thinking about the solidness of Jonghyun’s shoulders under his hands. He’s in the middle of brushing his teeth when Nicole calls and he picks up, managing a gargled _Hello?_ around the toothbrush in his mouth.

“ _Kibum_ ,” Nicole says, a note of reproach in her voice. “It’s noon.”

He spits out the toothpaste in his mouth, and points out, “It’s _Saturday_. And you don’t have kids yet, Nicole, don’t nag.”

Nicole’s sputter through the phone is nowhere near as vehement as it usually is, so Kibum knows something’s wrong. “What’s up?” he asks as he walks from his bathroom to his kitchen, balancing the phone between his ear and shoulder as he opens the cupboard for a glass, filling it from the sink.

“Nothing,” she says, but she sounds miffed. Kibum waits for her to fold, taking a sip of his water. “It’s nothing, just Jinwoon.”

“Ah,” Kibum says, setting his glass down. “My good friend, the idiot. Want to come over?”

“Yes please,” Nicole responds. “See you in fifteen?”

He throws together a soup that is still simmering by the time Nicole shows up. She’s over in thirteen, exactly the amount of time it takes to get from her and Jinwoon’s apartment to Kibum’s at a brisk pace, and one look at Nicole’s face makes Kibum open his arms, collecting her in them.

“Come here,” he says soothingly. “What’s wrong?”

He feeds her bites of soup in between her fuming retelling of Jinwoon’s latest transgression, a case of miscommunication that was, okay, particularly stupid on Jinwoon’s part, but Kibum also knows well Nicole’s temper. He coaxes her back from the angry edge of her indignation and, by the time Jinwoon sends a cutesy apology picture text that Kibum rolls his eyes at, she’s more chagrinned than anything.

“Thanks, Kibum,” she sighs, burrowing her face into his shoulder. “Sorry. I just freaked out because, well, you know.”

He did know, he thinks, a little bit—Jinwoon and Nicole complemented each other so well no one seemed to know what to do when they fought. “What are friends for,” he hums, rubbing her arm soothingly and a bit distractedly. Nicole flicks her eyes up at him; he usually never hesitates to pass up a chance to ream on Jinwoon. He loves Jinwoon, of course, but Nicole came first. He hesitates, mulling over what happened last night in his mind and whether or not he should tell Nicole. It might be unfair to Jonghyun, he decides, but it’d be unfair to him, too, and he doesn’t owe Jonghyun anything, not yet.

“Actually,” he begins.

Nicole perks up, blinking up at him, and he remembers the time Nicole told him he always starts off like that when he needs to make a confession and how he’s tried every time since then to break himself of the habit, to no avail. This trips him up, that he’s still, after all, predictable.

“Uh,” he continues, fumbling over his words. “Uh. Jonghyun and I—last night—“

He stops, flushing, but thankfully Nicole gets the hint.

“ _What_?” she asks, eyes round as she sits up and away from him. “You mean you—“

“No!” Kibum half-shouts, when he realizes what she’s thinking. “Oh God, no, not that, we just—you know—made out a little,” he finishes lamely, embarrassment crawling up his face.

Kibum’s not too sure what exactly he was expecting by way of an expression, but he’s pretty sure Nicole’s face falling before she catches herself is far from what he was looking for.

“What?” he asks, and it comes out defensive before he can stop himself.

She just shakes her head in response, palming his cheek before pressing her nose to it. “Just be careful,” she murmurs close to his ear.

“What—” he says, indignant, but she cuts him off.

“Jonghyun is _really_ , _really_ famous, Kibum,” she says, lacing their fingers together. “And I know you know that, and I know he likes you. But I know you, and I’m just saying you should be careful.”

 

\--

 

As if to prove her point, she sends him an article Sunday morning while he’s still in bed from some sleazy gossip mag, which includes a few blurry cellphone pictures of him and Jonghyun outside the movie theater. In the first one, Jonghyun is signing autographs, looking sheepish, Kibum harried as he waves for a cab. What Kibum doesn’t remember—but it must be true, he supposes, if he’s looking at it—is the way he’s standing, body curved protectively, possessively towards Jonghyun’s. The second, him ducking his head slightly so that Jonghyun can whisper in his ear, the two of them too close for just a secret between friends. The third, just the tips of Jonghyun’s fingers pressing low on Kibum’s back as he ushers him into the cab, throwing an apologetic smile over his shoulder at his fans.

It’s not particularly damning, but laid out like that in front of him, suddenly all Kibum can remember is the confident, unhurried way Jonghyun had kissed him. How blindingly pleased he’d looked afterwards with himself, with Kibum. The intimate, playful way he’d tugged on the end of Kibum’s shirt right before he left. This isn’t at all how he wants this, Kibum realizes, bitter feeling in his throat. He spends the better part of twenty minutes just clicking through the pictures, blowing them up to their grainiest, looking for something that will absolve him.

Unsurprisingly, it is a text from Jonghyun that breaks him out of his reverie, some short, emoticon-riddled message with a silly selca attached. Grateful for the distraction, for the return to a dynamic Kibum understands, he rolls over onto his stomach, snickering.

It only takes a few exchanges, however, until Jonghyun texts back, straightforward and abrupt, _do you have time tonight? can I see you?_

It is one week after Jonghyun’s comeback and Kibum doesn’t live under a rock; he’s seen the news, knows how well-received his single has been. He knows Jonghyun had swept all of the weekly awards the week he’d come back and has been projected to stay on top of the charts for at least a few weeks more. For a 27-year-old solo singer in an industry of boybands and girl groups, it is startling and, more than anything, a true testament to Jonghyun’s talent. And even if Kibum didn’t know anything about pop culture, he would still remember the absent weeks leading up to Jonghyun’s comeback, and all the late nights Jonghyun, usually playful, though never when it came to his career, had pulled. The bruises under his eyes had been even darker than they usually were, and Kibum doubted if anyone but his managers, trainers, and stylist team saw him at all for two weeks.

The last time Kibum had seen him—his stomach clenches at the memory, unbidden, of the way Jonghyun’s fingers had tangled in his hair, and he shakes the feeling away.

By all means, Jonghyun is the one who shouldn’t have time to see Kibum, and Kibum hates feeling uncertain, hates feeling second best, even when he understands why he is and even when he knows he would do the same.

_Of course_ , Kibum responds, second-guessing every word, _just let me know when you’re free._ He hits ‘send’ before he can think too much more about it, rolling over again only to see the paparazzi pictures of him and Jonghyun pulled up on his computer still.

 

\--

 

It is nine when Jonghyun finally comes over that night, making light apologies for the late hour. They spend a slightly tense two hours together watching an American basketball game on Kibum’s couch, Kibum careful to keep a friendly, polite distance between them. At one point, right around halftime, Jonghyun shifts imperceptibly closer to press his shoulder, hesitant, against Kibum’s. It takes all of Kibum’s best efforts not to jump and pull away. He keeps his eyes on the screen, though just barely, even when he can hear his voice, explaining some tedious detail about conference planning, grow louder and just slightly higher-pitched, much as it always does when he is nervous.

By the end of the game, Jonghyun’s arm is thrown casually around the back of the couch, enough so that Kibum is pretty sure he could swear without lying too much that Jonghyun most adamantly did _not_ have his arm around his shoulders. By the time the sportscasters are covering the game highlights, Kibum’s mind feels as if it’s been buzzing for the past two hours with the tension.

Jonghyun cuts into Kibum’s slightly frenetic dialogue about banquet centerpieces with a laugh, sliding closer. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, eyes frank as he ducks his head to peer into Kibum’s.

Kibum’s mouth claps shut, blush already warming the tips of his ears. “Not if you interrupt me like that,” he mutters waspishly. If pressed, he would admit that he maybe—okay, he _did_ —leaned into Jonghyun’s arm behind him, turning his face towards Jonghyun to look at him.

“You were talking about centerpieces,” Jonghyun points out, though his tone is only half-heartedly chiding. He drops his gaze to Kibum’s mouth, sliding a hand over Kibum’s knee and thoroughly startling him. The warm, physical weight of Jonghyun’s fingers anchors him, and brings back, suddenly, all the little things Kibum had been trying not to remember about Thursday night.

“I thought you were going to kiss me. Or was that just a ploy to make me stop,” Kibum says accusingly, voice overly loud over the din of the highlights reel, turning slightly away as he feels the flush start to creep over his nose.

The hand on his chin turns him back towards Jonghyun, who murmurs a soft _both_ before his mouth is on his again. This, unlike the lead-up, is easy, so easy, and Kibum feels something in his stomach unclench. He opens his mouth under Jonghyun’s, blood rushing in his ears.

This time, unlike Thursday night, is much more frantic, and before long Jonghyun’s fingers are insistent at the hem of Kibum’s shirt, pushing it up and away, blunt and well-manicured nails digging into his shoulders. Kibum presses him into the back of his couch, feeling giddy and reckless as he nips at his mouth, making a low, undignified sound in the back of his throat when Jonghyun’s tongue swipes at his lip.

“Don’t,” Jonghyun says softly when Kibum bites at the soft skin under his chin. Kibum jerks away like he’s been burned, feeling embarrassed and combative, fingers reflexively curling around his shirt on the couch next to them and ready to throw Jonghyun out if he has to. Jonghyun notices, and is apologetic when he pulls Kibum’s wrist away from the shirt, bringing Kibum’s hand up to kiss at his wrist. “Sorry, it’s just—” he mumbles, teeth scraping gently at Kibum’s pulse.

“No, no, I know.” Kibum, quick to reassure, bobs his head, though he still feels self-conscious. Jonghyun, who mistakes the action as Kibum trying to kiss him, crashes his nose on the upswing into the downswing of Kibum’s chin, and Kibum bursts out laughing.

“Hey, don’t break my nose,” Jonghyun pouts, and reaches up to push Kibum’s hair away from his face.

Kibum turns his head to mouth at Jonghyun’s palm, then grins down at him. “You could probably use a little more work on it anyway,” he says, ducking his head before Jonghyun can pull at his hair.

Jonghyun opens his mouth in false shock, and pinches the back of his neck. “What are you trying to say? You’re lucky you’re hot.” His voice drops, tone rough, before he pulls Kibum down for a kiss, arching up into him.

Kibum, desperate for the feeling of warm skin against his, only murmurs a vague agreement as he tugs at the collar of Jonghyun’s shirt. He spreads his palms wide over Jonghyun’s stomach under his shirt, marveling at the way Jonghyun’s breath hitches, and at the way he can feel it against his throat.

“Up, up, come on,” Kibum breathes, breaking away and pulling at Jonghyun’s shirt insistently.

Jonghyun laughs even as he allows himself to be manhandled out of his shirt, emerging with his hair tousled and his mouth swollen. “So impatient,” he teases, but as his hands are currently tugging at Kibum’s belt, Kibum feels that this is a rather unfair assessment.

“Excuse me,” Kibum manages to get out in between kisses, which at this point are more him and Jonghyun pressing their open mouths hurriedly together as they work at each other’s belts. By the time Jonghyun’s sliding Kibum’s belt out of his belt loops, Kibum feels like his insides are humming with the anticipation.

“Do you,” he gets out haltingly, sitting up so he is straddling Jonghyun. He gestures vaguely in the general area of his bedroom, feeling an embarrassed flush crawl up his chest. “You know, do you want to—”

Jonghyun thumbs at the dip of Kibum’s hipbones before undoing just the top button of Kibum’s jeans. Kibum’s mind goes deliciously blank for a second as Jonghyun rubs his knuckle over the second button, pursing his lips as if he’s thinking it through.

“I guess,” is the final, sly verdict, smile sunny as he looks up at Kibum.

“Right,” Kibum says, and doesn’t move. “Okay, great,” he repeats, and almost falls off the couch when Jonghyun moves to sit up. “Sorry,” he mutters as Jonghyun snickers, mentally berating himself—it’s not like he’s back in high school with an uncontrollable libido going at it for the first time, for crying out loud, he’s almost _twenty-six_. He hops around for a second to regain his balance, looking for the remote so he can turn off the TV and so that when he remembers this later, it isn’t with a background soundtrack of late-night infomercials. The sudden silence when he turns it off is startling in his living room, but before Kibum can have second thoughts or think too hard about what’s about to happen, Jonghyun tugs at his wrist.

When Kibum looks at him, Jonghyun has both their shirts crumpled in one hand and is looking at him warmly, expectantly. “Lead the way,” he says when he catches Kibum’s gaze, grinning lazily with just a touch of a leer at the end.

Kibum finds his voice just in time to manage a rough, “Right.”

 

\--

 

Kibum pushes his palms into his eyes, feeling stars explode behind his eyes. He groans, feeling a deep, deep sense of self-pity. He leans against the break room counter, massaging his temples.

Taemin steps into the break room in the middle of one of Kibum’s deep-breathing exercises and fixes himself a cup of coffee before turning to him. “What’s wrong with you?” Taemin asks curiously, in lieu of a hello. “You look awful.”

Kibum takes a second out of his self-indulgent wallowing to glare at him. “Thanks, Taemin,” he says. “Hello to you too. I had a—long night, thank you for asking.”

Taemin blows at the steam rising above his coffee. “Oh, I see,” he says, voice mockingly deliberate. “A _long night_. And on a Sunday, too, wow.” He whistles and steps quickly out of the break room before Kibum can snap at him, wiggling his fingers in good-bye.

Kibum thinks longingly of the days when Taemin had been a shy, bright-eyed freshman who doted on him, and throws back the ibuprofen he’d found in the cupboard, willing the dull throb of his mind away. He curses Jonghyun, who’d woken up this morning at 6:30 after four hours of sleep, looking fresh-faced and well-rested. He should’ve known that even the dreaded morning after would be easy with Jonghyun, who had been a gregarious sleeper, throwing an arm around Kibum’s waist and burying his head in the crook of his neck.

“I want to die,” Kibum had muttered into his pillow after shutting off the last of the three alarms he’d set for himself last night, even as Jonghyun shook his shoulder. “Go away. How can you even function?”

“Years of practice, baby,” Jonghyun had said, obnoxiously cheerful, though the hand now stroking through Kibum’s hair was gentle. “Come on, I’ll put on some coffee.” He’d swung his legs out of bed then, hopping a little on one foot as he pulled on his underwear. Kibum rolled over just as Jonghyun was pulling on the shirt Kibum had been wearing the night before, and he unexpectedly felt warm and suddenly affectionate, remembering the way Jonghyun had said his name. Jonghyun stuck his tongue out at Kibum once he saw him looking, and flicked the soles of his feet as he walked by. The sound of Jonghyun puttering around his kitchen came a minute or two after, and Kibum reluctantly dragged himself out of bed, padding to the bathroom.

A ten-minute lukewarm shower, his daily twenty-minute morning face ritual, and a cup of coffee later, Kibum was feeling a bit more like a real person again. In the kitchen, Jonghyun hummed absentmindedly as he took bites out of a banana, a tune Kibum had recognized as the debut single of the most recent girl group sensation.

He really had looked remarkably well-rested, and happy too—Kibum’s shirt was just the tiniest bit too big for him, the neck revealing the firm line of his collarbone. His feet were bare on Kibum’s kitchen tiles, and he shifted a little as he bit into the banana. This image of Jonghyun—sweet voice, bare feet, soft hair and all—struck Kibum as he’d looked at him, lodging itself low somewhere in his throat. Again, he was seized by the thought of how impossible the situation was, and the sense of reality looming not far beyond them. He pushed Jonghyun back against his kitchen counter, setting his cup down behind him, and leaned down to kiss him until Jonghyun pushed him away, both of them breathless.

Jonghyun had left a little after that, coming into Kibum’s bedroom just as he was changing.

“I have to go,” he’d said, though the way he leaned against the wall like he belonged right there in Kibum’s bedroom seemed like he was only getting ready to settle in. And just looking at him, Kibum wanted him to—wanted to carve out a week to spend time with Jonghyun obligation-free, to pin him down and explore that lush, expressive mouth, to eat breakfast and roll around in bed, to compress months of possibility into, at the very least, one week.

Kibum turned away slightly, feeling heavy and already melancholy because he knew none of it would ever come to pass. Jonghyun grinned at him, tilting his head. There were a lot of things he’d wanted to ask, but the only thing he could think of was, “Are you taking that shirt?”

Jonghyun looked down, pulling at the hem of the shirt—an old one of Kibum’s, from his water-skiing days. “Yeah,” he said, smiling, and Kibum could tell he wasn’t going to see that shirt back anytime soon. “Is that a problem?”

Kibum sighed loudly, turning away and pretending to think about it. “Fine,” he finally said, half-begrudgingly drawing out the syllables.

The hand at his waist was a surprise, and so was the nose Jonghyun tucked into the curve of his neck, breath a warm ghost of a kiss as he said, a little teasingly, “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of it.”

When Kibum rubs the back of his neck, working out the cricks, he wonders if maybe he should’ve asked for the shirt back then, shouldn’t have given it away so easily. At any rate, he supposes, it is too late now.

 

\--

 

Promotions keep Jonghyun busy for weeks after that, and Kibum alternates between guilt for feeling relieved for the reprieve from having to confront the evolution their relationship is undergoing, and embarrassment from the edge of attachment that manifests itself mostly in the late-night texts they send while Jonghyun goes from one commitment to another. Nicole hesitates every time they hang out, as if she wants to ask, but he is grateful she never did after that first time. How could he explain it to her, when he doesn’t even understand it? Every time Jonghyun shows up on his doorstep at two in the morning, circles deep and dark under his eyes, Kibum feels so much helpless affection he just wants to clench his teeth.

He’s only good at the chase, has never been good at being caught, and ‘caught’ is the only way he can describe the slow burn in his throat every time Jonghyun sighs into his shoulder. It leaves him both melancholy and satisfied, like he’s perpetually at two glasses of wine after a long night, just enough to unwind but not enough to stave away the impending headache. Jonghyun never stays past six in the morning, sometimes sneaking out at five, his hand warm on Kibum’s neck as he bends over him for a slow, reluctant kiss.

Thankfully, the conference on refugee rights they host annually falls this year in August, which means Kibum spends all of July stressing out over the last-minute details that always seem to pop up no matter how much time they spent preparing in the months before and not thinking about the uneasy precipice his and Jonghyun’s relationship is teetering on.

The closer they get to the official date of conference, ‘after conference’ becomes, as it always does, a mantra for their office, everyone invoking it in turn so much it’s become a contest to see who has the grandest post-conference plans.

“After conference,” Sulli says dreamily, pillowing her cheek on the stack of last-minute registration forms on her desk, “I’m going to take a day off, go to Myeongdong, and spend an entire paycheck on snacks.”

“After conference,” Taemin chimes in, clutching his clipboard to his chest, “I’m going to buy a whole pig and spend a whole day eating it.”

They sigh in unison, wistfully, until a paper ball flies over the wall dividing Sulli’s desk from Accounting, bouncing off Taemin’s shoulder.

“You’re not going to make it to ‘after conference’ if you keep talking,” Sehun says, voice muffled but crabby. 

Taemin smoothes out the sheet of paper, then stands up from where he’d been crouching by Sulli’s chair. “Sehun,” he says, voice dangerously sweet. “I told you to file this receipt last week.”

The silence that follows from behind the wall divide is profoundly guilty. The grin on Taemin’s face spreads feral. “Sehun-ah,” he trills, rounding the corner.

“Don’t leave bruises where people can see them,” Kibum calls out from the break room, where he’d been hiding from the mountain of last-minute work that was currently the bane of his existence.

“I never do,” Taemin calls back over Sehun’s muffled shouts of, _mercy! Mercy! I’ll never forget again!_

“What are you going to do after conference, sunbae?” Sulli asks. It’s her first conference, and Kibum knew it was taking its toll on her when she came into work with her right eyebrow a shade just slightly darker brown than her left. With great reluctance, she pulls up the blank Excel spreadsheet she’d been battling with for the better part of the morning and starts entering names, hitting the keys with more force than perhaps necessary.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kibum says, surprised to find that it’s true. His hand comes up to pat self-consciously at his hair, which he hadn’t had time to style this morning, as he thinks. “Go somewhere, maybe?”

Sulli hums in response, satisfied.

Kibum finds himself coming back to the question as the day drags on. The elusive after conference is a game they all play around this time of the year. Last year, they’d all gone out for drinks the minute they were done, which had concluded, of course, with an amused Nicole and a somewhat-irate Jinwoon collecting an incoherent Kibum from noraebang at three in the morning. They’d made up horror stories about it for weeks afterwards, and Kibum had genuinely thought he’d tried to make out with Jinwoon while blackout drunk until Nicole finally broke down and almost cried with laughter when she showed him pictures of the state they’d found him in. Incriminating, but at least none of them featured him mouth to mouth with—he shudders at the very thought—Jinwoon.

“So I didn’t make out with Jinwoon, right?” Kibum had demanded just to be sure.

Nicole stopped laughing. “God, no,” she’d said, wrinkling her nose. “I would’ve punched you if you’d tried.”

Jinwoon, deeply impressed, pressed a kiss to her temple. Kibum had just sighed in relief; he knew they were best friends for a reason.

In any case, ‘after conference’ has, at this point, become a dream of almost mythical proportions. Kibum is determined, this time around, to do it right.

“Want to go somewhere together? After conference?” Kibum asks that night when he’s in bed, and hates the way the static of the phone makes his voice sound overly loud, too eager in the night. He stares up at his bedroom ceiling and knows, almost immediately, that he did it wrong.

The hesitance on the other end is answer enough, and he feels the panic rise up inside of him. He curls up, fisting a handful of his sheets. _Just kidding_ , he wants to say, but it’d be too late at this point.

“I can’t,” Jonghyun finally says, pitching his voice low, and Kibum imagines him rubbing his temples in the backseat of his manager’s car—they’d stopped letting him drive after midnight after an accident put him out of commission for a whole month last year and raised rumors of an alcohol addiction Jonghyun, who worried constantly about his health, was still trying to shake off. “I won’t have the time. I thought you’d realized—I thought you knew.”

Kibum sets his jaw, pulling the phone a bit away from his ear so Jonghyun won’t hear the unhappy click of his teeth. When he’s finally wrestled the unwieldy feeling in his throat down, he brings the phone back to his ear, and just listens to Jonghyun’s deep breathing exercises for a few moments. “I do know,” he says lightly, grateful that his voice sounds natural. “Don’t worry about it; forget I asked.”

Jonghyun lets out his breath on the other end in a rush of static. “Listen,” he says, sounding relieved and grateful. “I have to go. Sleep well, okay? I’ll try to see you soon.”

 

\--

 

The second week before conference, Kibum wastes half a day with Taemin worrying about how they’re going to fit all their sponsors’ names onto the brochure mockup without going over onto a second page before Sehun, with a pinched, long-suffering look on his face, shoos them away from the computer and calls them back twenty minutes later to show them a pdf of a perfectly formatted copy.

“Ah, Sehun, this is why we hired you,” Taemin murmurs, exhaustion making him cross-eyed even as he beams, ruffling Sehun’s hair. “Your inimitable word processing skills.”

“I thought it was my charm,” Sehun responds, swatting at Taemin’s hand.

“That’s just a bonus,” Taemin says around his yawn. This is the second week of overtime they’ve pulled together, and it’s taking its toll on even Taemin, who is, for all of his faults, usually the hardest working of them all.

“No fraternizing with the intern.” Kibum flaps his hand vaguely in the direction of Taemin and Sehun, both of whom look back at him, Sehun grossed out and Taemin mildly offended at Sehun’s reaction. “But thank you, Sehun.”

“Whatever,” Sehun says grumpily, and storms away for no reason.

“Such a pleasant young man,” Kibum muses, stretching his arms above his head. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll explode if I have to think about any of this anymore.” He follows Taemin to his office, where the younger man grabs his suit jacket from the hook on his wall.

“Drinks?” Taemin asks, the question muffled around the sheaf of papers he has in his mouth as he pulls on the jacket.

Kibum, distracted, tugs at the corner of the papers. “Is this the keynote speaker’s itinerary?” he demands.

The look Taemin gives him is a cheerful rendition of Sehun’s signature ‘I could fill an entire spreadsheet with all the ways that question was stupid’ look. “Drinks,” he says decidedly. “Come on, you’ve got the first round.”

They bicker lightly all the way to the elevator and onto the street, where the late summer heat pulls the sweat right up to the edge of Kibum’s hairline, seeping into his carefully-constructed hairdo. They run with different friend groups even though they both did dance team in college and still work together, so Kibum doesn’t hang out with Taemin much—and always forgets how much he likes it until they do. Taemin’s age made everyone want to mother him in college and all the years on an educational fast track made him seem particularly young in certain situations. For Kibum, that moment had come when he invited Taemin over for dinner and Taemin, upon being asked to cook the rice, bypassed the pot completely and dumped water and rice directly into the cooker. Kibum still doesn’t like to think about what could’ve happened if he hadn’t happened to look over just before Taemin plugged it in. Taemin had been wholly unconcerned then, much as he continued to be now.

The bar they settle for is the only one near their office anyone at SHINE could stand. It was admittedly a little too full of yuppies and expats for either of their tastes, but at eight p.m. on a sweltering Thursday, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Kibum leans against the bar, credit card in hand, and remembers fondly the two weeks he courted alcoholism in the form of lunchtime Long Island Iced Teas here after he and Hyungseop broke up two years ago.

“Two Coronas,” he says when he finally gets the bartender’s attention, wrangling a dish of lime slices out of her as well with a bat of his eyelashes.

Taemin cheers when Kibum retreats back to the booth they’d claimed. “Jongin’s coming,” he says around the mouth of his beer after a long, satisfied pull. “He was going to go back to the office and answer some emails, but I told him that if he went back I would fire him.”

“You can’t do that anymore,” Kibum points out, not ungently.

“He doesn’t know that,” Taemin hums, satisfied. Jongin probably does, Kibum thinks, even if Taemin has made a routine out of threatening Jongin with unemployment if he doesn’t run all the errands Taemin tells him to do because he doesn’t want to himself.

His phone buzzes in the middle of their second beer, just as Kibum cracks up at Taemin pulling his face in an imitation of their mailman, Minho, who had a big crush on their legal aid Krystal, not knowing about the star-crossed inter-building romance she had with Amber from the accounting firm upstairs even though he carried all their perfume-scented notes back and forth.

“Hello?” he says without looking at the caller ID, still snickering.

“ _Hey!_ ” Jonghyun’s voice crackles to life on the other end, and Kibum fumbles the wedge of lime in his free hand. It’s been a few days since they’ve been able to talk, and probably a week since they’ve seen each other—Jonghyun doesn’t, by any means, _owe_ anything to Kibum, but Kibum didn’t think he was wrong in thinking that their relationship was still too much in limbo, too easily hurt by prolonged periods of no communication.

The lead up to conference, for better or for worse, just happened to coincide with preparations for Jonghyun’s second comeback cycle, and each time Kibum got to see him was an oasis of relief in their mutual trying situations. Jonghyun’s most recent album was advertised as being released in two parts—the first part had been released in early June, and had been upbeat and club-ready, from what Kibum remembered, and then the second the first week of August, a slower R&B mix.

“It mirrors the trajectory of a summer fling,” Jonghyun had tried to explain the last time they got to hang out, the first time in two weeks either of them caught a break. Kibum had just stared at Jonghyun until he deflated and just sang a few bars from the first and last songs on the album in demonstration. Kibum’s laughter, and the muttered _shut up_ followed by Jonghyun’s hand knotted in his hair pulled him back, as it always did, from the edge of doubt.

Jonghyun, over the phone, continues, “ _Uh, listen, my schedule ended early today. I really wanted to see you! Do you want to come over? I can get takeout, or something._ ”

“Hey,” Kibum says, hand coming up to hold back the grin he can feel threatening to break out over his face at the combination of _really_ , _want_ , and _you_. “Yeah—yeah, I’d love to. That sounds great. See you in a bit.”

“ _I’m still on my way home._ ” Jonghyun’s voice on the other end is teasing. “ _Give me forty five minutes. See you soon._ ” And then, soft right before he hangs up, like a ding-dong-ditch on Kibum’s heart—“ _Can’t wait._ ”

“Who was _that_?” Taemin asks when Kibum hangs up, raising his eyebrows at him.

“Just Jonghyun,” Kibum says, and Taemin’s eyebrows shoot up even higher. “Listen, I gotta go. Sorry.”

“Oh okay,” he says, clasping his hands together, “just Jonghyun. I see.” Then he leans in, just as Jongin walks in through the door, spots them, and makes a beeline for their table. “Are you ditching us for him?” he demands. “What happened to the code, hyung?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kibum says breezily, scooting out of the booth just as Jongin nears. “I’m heading out. Sorry, Jongin. Here.” He presents Jongin with his half-full beer with a flourish, and Jongin takes it after a suspicious pause, as if Kibum would waste his time trying to prank Jongin.

“Traitor,” Taemin calls after him, sounding miffed but amused.

Kibum, ears still ringing from the bright burst of Jonghyun’s laughter, just wiggles his fingers over his shoulder in response.

 

\--

 

Jonghyun gets into a mild scandal towards the tail end of his second promotion cycle, when some pictures of him and darling young actress Shin Sekyung at the wedding of a mutual industry friend are leaked. Kibum knows it’s nothing, really, or at least not anymore. Three years earlier, from what Kibum could gather, it might’ve been cause for concern. But now they’re merely good friends with a touch of just the right kind of history, compelling enough to send Jonghyun’s name to the top of search engine lists for a solid two days and Kibum into one of his moods.

Maybe it is his biggest shortcoming, maybe it could be worse, but there is nothing Kibum can stand less than the idea of being second best, of being someone’s secret fuck behind the scenes. Jonghyun doesn’t mean to make him feel that way, he knows, and had once after a fight bit out a _what do you want me to do?_ , hands tightening imperceptibly around Kibum’s waist. The question had meant more than the answer, and they’d both known it—Kibum rolled over afterwards, sighing and smoothing a hand through Jonghyun’s hair. It was selfish on both parts, Jonghyun for offering something he didn’t mean and Kibum for wanting it anyway. Either way, it was a fight neither of them wanted to have, knowing what they did about the other’s character. Kibum dropped it after that, and Jonghyun took care to be extra kind to him—it was a truce more than a resolution, and the knot in Kibum’s chest loosened but never completely came undone.

Jonghyun is trying, but Kibum, for as much as he truly likes Jonghyun, is tired of investing in men who can’t—or won’t—choose him. There were a lot of good-looking men he slept with and a lot more he didn’t sleep with in college, men who hid their sexual preferences behind business degrees and multiple girlfriends, who sought out Kibum because they were shallow and scared and curious and he was, okay, attractive in a way most people understood, and so unabashed about his sexuality that it stripped all the antagonism out of his detractors, leaving them looking foolish. They’d heard—who knows where from, probably the same club that gave them all high-powered jobs after graduation in the same five companies—that he kept secrets well and that he was good in bed, that he was scathingly honest but fair.

And he was generous with himself, for a while at least, until he got tired of emails from soccer players or macho underclassmen whose playboy reputations preceded them, saying they’d heard he ‘was a good person to talk to’ or telling him they had something ‘sensitive’ to discuss. They’d even cried, a few of them and, because Kibum was a romantic beneath the cynicism, he thought more than a few times that maybe it’d work, but there was no point when they were all so self-absorbed and so self-hating that they just dragged Kibum down with it.

He’d settled down, relatively, sometime around his third year, got a boyfriend in the form of Lee Jinki, a senior psychology major who was smart but quiet, a little goofy, but clearly adored Kibum and wasn’t afraid of showing it, a welcome change after all the men who put their pride before their humanity. He was cute, too, in a different way than Kibum was used to, but he knew how good they looked together if only because all his friends told him so. It was so refreshing that Kibum threw himself into the relationship enthusiastically, tried hard to make it work despite a tense last two months, when the silences finally caught up between them, leaving them with nothing more to say to each other. They’d parted mostly amicably and, while Kibum could never say it had been love, or even that he’d tried very hard to keep in touch after college, he was well-aware of the value of the intangible things Jinki had given him over the course of their relationship.

That is why it is so frustrating with Jonghyun—because he _does_ try, and he lets know Kibum he adores him in all the small ways Kibum likes, like the absentminded hand on his knee or the way Jonghyun never lets up but is also never cruel in his teasing when Kibum does something embarrassing. In this way, even the romantic in him is practical—they got along so well, were such fast and easy friends, and although Kibum always liked the _idea_ of self-destructive love, he realized he preferred comfort and stability in actuality. The rebellion in him had been disappointed to learn that about himself, but the adult Kibum now thanked his younger self for the foresight. Apparently it didn’t make him any less stupid, though, and with Jonghyun, Kibum finds himself feeling wistful and hopefully, gritting his teeth more often than not.

 

\--

 

Planning for conference eats up so much of their time Kibum is always left feeling a bit bereft once it’s over, when two solid months of planning culminate in just one tightly-wound weekend. It comes together, as it always does, and the biggest hiccup in the proceedings ends up being Kibum wearing socks that are two slightly different shades of blue, which is really only distressing for him. But every conference after the first year is more or less just as he remembered it from the year previous—somewhat of an anxious and rather anticlimactic blur, and then suddenly it’s the Sunday night banquet and Kibum is making faces at Taemin to keep awake over the world’s ugliest centerpieces.

Sulli makes good on her post-conference goals, though she morosely informs Kibum the next day that she couldn’t make it all the way through her paycheck. Kibum had ended up going to late-night barbecue with Taemin and his determined group of followers. Kibum, unused to gorging, felt like he ate half his weight in meat that night, but the laughter, the camaraderie, and, yes, the copious amounts of soju, more than made up for the smell of meat he’ll probably have to spend weeks getting out of his hair.

Amber from upstairs accounting firm fame shows up halfway through the meal to take Krystal home. When Krystal flashes them all a V-sign and a wink behind Amber’s back, Kibum and Taemin high-five while Jongin groans, taking out his wallet.

_I’m going to bed. If I get a call saying I have to drag your ass home at 3am again, I’m uninviting you from my wedding_ , Jinwoon texts him around one in the morning, terrifying photo of Nicole in a mud mask attached.

_Nicole already threatened me with that. You two have become so unoriginal~_ is all Kibum texts back in response, and laughs at the well-deserved middle finger he gets back.

The soju is a welcome, warm weight in his bloodstream by the time they all claim defeat, even as Taemin, eyelids drooping, calls them all sissies and misses his mouth entirely as he tries to cram another slice of meat into his mouth. After making sure Taemin will get home safely, Kibum hails a cab for himself, grimacing apologetically at the driver when he wrinkles his nose at the smell.

Sleepy and sated, Kibum texts Jonghyun on his taxi ride home—Jonghyun had sent him a quick ‘ _congratulations! you’ve worked had~ ^^_ text just a few hours ago that he’d gotten during the banquet, the buzzing in his pocket a welcome distraction from the long thank you list their executive director was making her way through—and can’t help but heave a sigh that makes the driver shoot him a concerned sideways look when Jonghyun sends him his overnight schedule and five different crying emoticons in a row.

It’s not fair to Jonghyun, probably, but Kibum starts feeling, again, the slow burn of upkeep. He sends back a sympathetic platitude he only half-means, and wishes Jonghyun a quick good night before he lets the mean, petty side of him slip out.

Whatever their relationship could be is marred by what it isn’t, even as he tries to will himself to be better. A few nights ago, with the sting of the scandal with Sekyung still fresh, he’d almost snapped at Jonghyun for the lingering hug he’d given him after dinner in the face of Nicole’s pointed pity, and it was only the hurt flashing across Jonghyun’s face that stopped him.

“I’m trying,” Jonghyun had hissed at him later. He’d looked frustrated and Kibum was sorry, mostly because Jonghyun never took that tone with Kibum. After all the initial charm had worn off for both of them, Kibum had discovered Jonghyun could be irritating and grating, too, but he still indulged Kibum at almost every turn. In some ways, it was because Kibum was, okay, just a bit difficult, and the kind of man who demanded it, but in a lot of ways it was because Jonghyun liked Kibum and, no matter what, Kibum never doubted the veracity of that.

After setting an alarm for the morning, Kibum quickly switches off his phone, not wanting to see the usual string of good night texts from Jonghyun, each progressively softer and sillier than the last. It was a frankly embarrassing quirk of Jonghyun’s Kibum hated to admit he adored, the same way he adored Jonghyun’s casual, careless way of affection.

He over tips his driver by at least 40%, but anyone who has to cart home a grumpy twenty-something who smells like meat probably deserves it. When he opens the door to his apartment, he is greeted by the jacket Jonghyun had thrown carelessly over his coat rack weeks ago that he kept swearing and forgetting to pick up.

Kibum kicks his shoes off, and knocks Jonghyun’s jacket to the floor—petty, he knows, but it makes him feel just the tiniest bit better.

He makes it all the way through a quick shower and halfway through his nightly facial routine before he comes back, almost guiltily, to hang it up again.

 

\--

 

By the time the scandal with Sekyung dies down, Jonghyun’s promotional activities are over, and he settles into an easy and comfortable temporary MC slot on a popular variety show. In comparison to his frantic summer, the amount of free time he has seems in comparison downright luxurious. Kibum, without the stress of conference eating away at his time and his patience, feels the pressure ease off him as well.

They fall back into the easy familiarity that Kibum had liked best about their friendship, and the storm in Nicole’s face that seemed to brew every time she looked at Kibum gradually passes. It’s annoying to know that all it took was a little less sunshine—the summer heat has never treated Kibum well, and fall fashion was so much cuter—and two effortless dates with Jonghyun for the worst of the doubt to recede.

It’s so easy again, so full of possibilities, that Kibum feels like he’s been sucker-punched in the gut when Jonghyun tells him, the week before Kibum’s twenty-seventh birthday, that he’s off to Japan in a few weeks for an arena tour.

“I’ll be gone a few months, but I’ll be able to come back every once in a while,” Jonghyun tells his ceiling, exhaustion making his words slur a little. They are in Jonghyun’s spacious bed, and Jonghyun has an arm curled under Kibum that must be asleep by now, though if it is, he doesn’t give any indication of discomfort.

“Oh,” Kibum says, a neat, curt response. He rolls over, and something cold and sharp-edged clenches inside of him. Jonghyun flinches from the sudden movement, and the fingers of the arm that was under Kibum catch a corner of his shirt. Kibum pulls away, just out of arm’s reach.

They lie there, Kibum facing away from Jonghyun, feeling small and angry at Jonghyun, and then angry at himself for feeling angry, and Jonghyun doing deep-breathing exercises at his ceiling. “Come on, Kibum,” Jonghyun says after a pause, running a hand over the tired stubble on his chin. There’s a cajoling, almost laughing note in his voice—Jonghyun, even at the expense of himself, always does his best to be accommodating in difficult situations. He tries to smooth a hand down Kibum’s back, but Kibum just bristles, curling in on himself, even when he knows it’s not fair. “Let’s not do this anymore.”

“Jonghyun,” Kibum says. He hates the way he sounds accusatory and vulnerable all at once, but he hates also the way he scoots closer to Jonghyun, eager for the warmth. The uncertainty is taking its toll on him, but even at his most ornery Kibum knows the relationship is far from having run its course. “I don’t get it. What is it even worth to you?”

Jonghyun lets Kibum shift closer, doesn’t push but presses his arm, a warm anchor, against Kibum’s back. “I like you,” he says, and the frankness, the _easiness_ of the statement makes Kibum turn around, pulling the sheet of Jonghyun’s comforter tight around him. Jonghyun lets him have it, and then reaches across the distance between them to grip Kibum’s elbow. “I really like you. None of this is easy, I know, and I’m sorry. But, Kibum—you make me so happy.”

Jonghyun’s fingers, warm and steady around Kibum’s elbow, are startlingly honest. Kibum realizes that he wants to trust him, wants to believe, like Jonghyun does, that patient self-satisfaction is more than enough, that there is no need to force themselves to a preemptive conclusion just because Kibum is terrified of difficult truths. He presses his palms into his eyes, the negative afterimage of Jonghyun waiting, as he has always been, for Kibum to forgo his reservations.

Kibum makes up his mind then, and turns to press his face into the soft, worn fabric of Jonghyun’s shoulder, searching for purchase. “Okay,” he whispers into the warmth he finds there. “Okay.”


End file.
